


Domesticity

by MorningsofGold



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avenger Loki, Avengers Family, Domestic Avengers, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, a Totally Serious soap opera but with humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-08 21:11:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 57,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5513453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorningsofGold/pseuds/MorningsofGold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Banished by Odin and hunted by the Chitauri, Loki is a political refugee and the Avengers are forced to offer asylum. Through science experiments, swing dancing, panic attacks, shopping sprees, and Asgardian politics, the enemy begins to look like an ally. Eventual Avenger!Loki. Plus, Blackhawk and plenty of Tony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Man Who Fell to Earth

Strangely enough, it was Clint who got the call, casually and off-duty at that. Considering the mammoth repercussions of the event that sparked the worried alert from NYPD, you would think that Cap, maybe Thor, would be better equipped to deal with it. To doll out encouragement and orders and brainstorm on the best way to contain the situation. But no, it was Clint’s phone that rang as he cruised down the congested New York strip in Tony's Lexus (what Stark didn't know couldn't hurt him, and Clint wasn't about to share a home with a billionaire who owned, count em', six cars without playing in the sandbox once in a while) and he flipped it open smoothly.

"Yeah?"

"A-agent Barton?"

The voice on the other end was shaky and too loud, a scared amateur's attempt at true authority. Clint sat up a little straighter in his seat by instinct at the utterance of his professional title.

"This is he."

"The people at SHEILD gave us this number, sorry to bother you. I'm Detective Johnson with the NYPD. Is, uh, Captain America available?"

Clint rolled his eyes behind his Dolce and Gabba sunglasses (also Tony's) and popped a stick of gum (Natasha's) in his mouth. If you had told him six months ago that he was going to be taking calls for a dead supersolider, he would have calmly strung his bow and taken aim, because someone that insane was obviously a danger to themselves and others. But life had changed dramatically since the Avengers initiative became a roaring success, and after a little therapeutic time apart (a trip to the mother country for Natasha, nostalgic wanderings around New York for Steve, Netflix and target practice for Clint, and sciencey God-knows-what for Tony and Bruce) the team had come together again, presumably for good. The Avengers Tower as it was now called was completely habitable and nearly finished, and the team had defended the good people of the world from more threats than they thought were possible in such short a time. They had even made a considerable name for themselves and were forced to attend benefits, press conferences, and ribbon-cuttings, that sort of useless pandering to the publics romanticising. They had a fansite, for God's sake. But business was good and it kept Clint's hands busy, his friends close, and Natasha closer. He couldn't complain.

Except when the ever-excitable public started ringing up SHEILD over trivial emergencies and Fury defaulted the panic calls to his agent’s cell phones. It had become a sort of disciplinary measure for the team; "Ditch a meeting one more time and Fury's gonna synch your phone to SHEILD's switchboard". These veiled threats were usually thrown in Tony's direction, but he had blocked all his numbers long ago with so many encryptions that now the panic calls cycled throughout the team, and apparently today was Clint's day.

"He's not in right now, but I'd be glad to give you his number-"

"No, you'll do. We have a bit of situation in Central Park…"

Clint swore wordlessly, taking the exit that would dump him out at the mouth of Central Park three blocks away. Of course he was close. He was never lucky enough to be out of range.

"Have you exhausted all regional law enforcement resources? The Avengers aren't here for a  _bit_   _of a situation_ , Detective, you break glass only in the case of an earth-shattering, life-altering emergency."

"Yes, I know that, I assure you-" There was indistinct shouting and the crackling of static in the background, then a faint, low boom that Clint recognized as sonic. The detective took a moment to shout at his men, something panicky about " _Get that damn dome up now, you hear me?"_ Then he returned to his conversation with Clint, a little more insistent.

 "Agent Barton, please. This definitely warrants your attention. Hell, bring your whole team. Bring SHEILD, they'll be wanting a piece of this…"

Clint pulled into a parking space in Central Park, killing the engine but making no move to get out of the car. His voice was understated steel, pure assassin, and tired of dealing with some scatterbrained civilian.

"You have five seconds to brief me and hold my attention. What  _exactly_  have you got?"

The Detective told him. Clint felt some of the color drain from his face, twitched at the ghostly twinge of green magic pulling the strings on his heart, and exited the vehicle. While Detective Johnson breathlessly relayed the situation, Clint popped the Lexus's trunk and removed his hydraulic bow. He slung the canister of custom-made arrows over his shoulder as the detective stopped to breathe, then uttered a simple,

"Give me three minutes."

Snapping his phone shut, Clint snapped his bow open and slammed the trunk lid, striding into Central Park with a determined set to his jaw.

_That bastard just doesn’t know when to give up._

Two minuets and forty-six seconds later, Clint strode into a quarantined section of Central Park, ducking under police tape, dodging people with questions in their eyes, and flashing his SHEILD badge like the best of them. A few square miles of Central Park had been evacuated of all non-law enforcement personnel, so he didn't have to worry about scaring civilians or signing the dreaded autographs.

He singled Detective Johnson out easily by the wringing of hands and mopping of brow, not to mention the small crowd of underlings gathered around him. He wordlessly took the harried man by the elbow and began to drag him away from his employees, who bit back a few snarled protests when they saw the bow and arrows. Clint led the detective towards ground zero, his pale blue eyes hard with professionalism and barely contained anger.

"When did this happen?"

"About an hour ago," Johnson replied, quickening his pace so Clint didn't have to drag him. "Sky just opened up out of nowhere, like a mouth into a different dimension. Looked a lot like that vortex over downtown the last time around, but smaller.  _He_ stumbled out. We've got nearly a dozen witnesses waiting in the wings. A couple of those Clusia…Calui…Cluth-

"Chitauri," Hawkeye supplied impatiently, hopping over trees felled by the winds that had undoubtedly ripped out from the inter-dimensional vortex.

"Y-yes, two of them, footsoilders. He was struggling against them, badly hurt, but killed them both, then closed the portal. Witnesses say after that he just…Collapsed. That's how we found him, we got up the dome as soon as we could. It's blast and radiation proof, strongest thing we've got, but he's starting to wake up and I'm worried that it won't hold…"

His voice trailed off as they came to the lip of the crater where their unexpected visitor had fallen to earth. An uneasy electricity still crackled in the air, the remains of an interdimensional trip, and Hawkeye bristled at the familiar taste of magic and metal it brought to his mouth. He strode into the crater and stopped dead at what he found.

Sitting bruised and bleeding and scowling like a jaded child beneath the reinforced plastic dome his captors had erected was the God of Mischief, less resplendent than usual in dented armor and a torn cape. Loki's eyes were wild, the image of a caged animal, but he didn't seem to have the strength left to pull himself to his feet and his breathing was labored and sporadic.

He caught sight of Clint, arrow half strung out of instinct, and his face broke into a manic grin, all teeth and threats.

"Barton," He rasped delightedly, spitting out blood.

Clint kept an arrow trained on Loki as he pulled out his cellphone and punched in Steve's number.

"Hiya, Green Eyes."

His flippancy was deceiving. Inside, his rage ran through him taunt as a bowstring, ready to snap at the slightest provocation. This was the man who had stolen his mind, forced him to attack his closest friend, and damn near destroyed New York City. Clint would be perfectly content to put an arrow through one of those haunting eyes and go home. But, he had to go through socially acceptable channels to see justice done. Besides, Steve would want a piece of this action.

Captain America picked up on the second ring. "Hey Clint, how are you?"

"Cap. Got you a birthday present."

Steve sounded confused. "...It's not my birthday..."

"Forget it. We've got company in Central Park. Suit up and get the others. And before you ask, yeah, it's worth your time."


	2. Silent Lucidity

The NYPD had bent over backwards to keep the press and numerous sightseers away from Central Park as they transported Loki out. Normally the police were all for honest journalism, it had even helped them solve some cases in the past, but in this case honest journalism could mean a mass panic attack when the public got wind of the fact that somehow, someway, Loki was back.

Restraining him was hard enough. He had been content to glower threateningly while the dome had been erected, but a few hours later, when it had been collapsed and the NYPD had laid hands on him, the God of Mischief had turned into a snarling hellcat. Even with an apparently drained reservoir of magical power and injuries that would killed a mortal, it had still taken Cap and two burly NYPD cops to hold him down so they could get the handcuffs and muzzle on. That was the worst for the god, and Clint couldn't quite blame him. He understood how it was a necessary precaution against Loki's spoken spells and poisonous lies, but it added insult to injury and was sure to throw someone whose only power aside from magic was his silver speech into a panicked rage. Said panicked rage managed to land a kick in Steve's gut and almost bit off the finger of a New York sergeant before it was fully restrained and marched off towards the waiting armored car.

Taking Loki to the local police station to be booked was ludicrous as well as fully unnecessary, so he was transported straight to Avengers Tower, rising out of the urban grit like a shining beacon for all of America. That was something Tony had said at a press conference, and it reeked of Pepper's creative influence, but it was an apt description. The Tower was a hub of technology and peace negotiations and could withstand everything from gale-force winds to a nuclear attack. The submerged garage was outfitted with a few state-of-the-art holding cells capable of detaining the super-powered foes they had seen more and more of lately. They was fortified to withstand nearly anything you threw at them, modeled off SHEILDS containment unit on the helicarrier, and it was in one of these cells where Loki now sat, brooding like a child denied Christmas.

"How did he even get away from Odin?" Steve wondered aloud, standing with arms crossed, gazing into the cell. Clint and Natasha sat side by side on a bench behind him, tiredness and anger in their eyes as they cleaned their weapons, a joint nervous habit.

"Don't much know or care to know," Tony muttered, finishing typing in a security encryption in JARVIS's mainframe. As long as Loki was under his roof, he was emphatic that not a single movement wouldn't be monitored, cross-analyzed, and scanned for possible threats. The CCTV cameras in Loki's cell swung with precision to focus on him. "All I want to know is how to get him back there."

"Wasn't Thor supposed to see to his trial? He said it was taken care of…"

"Where is Thor, anyway?" Natasha asked.

As if on cue, the Norse god came thundering down the far corridor with a look of absolute wrath in his eyes, hammer in hand. Bruce, who was standing next to Tony at the computer controls pressed his knuckles to his lips and watching what was sure to be an interesting exchange.

Loki instinctively stood from his seat on the uncomfortable prison bench, emerald eyes blazing behind a sheaf of hair and layer of grime. Thor brought Mjolnir down hard on the glass, not enough shatter it, but with force enough to leave a hairline fracture, and Tony hissed like a cat who had just had its tail stepped on. Bruce silenced him with a firm grip on his arm.

"Loki," The displaced god of thunder and lightning growled. Loki but shook his head slowly at Thor's outburst, mocking to the end. Thor turned angrily on Steve.

"The Hawk informed me that my brother was in Midigard, but I readily admit I did not believe him. What is the meaning of this?"

"We were hoping you could tell us," Natasha said, her tone smooth and clipped as always. "I thought you took him back to Asgard."

"I did! He was made to stand trial before the Allfather, and Odin-King sentenced him to banishment to Jotunhiem."

"English, big guy," Tony put in "I don't speak Norsey-worsey."

"The realm of the frost giants." Clint sighed. Sometimes he thought he was the only one who listened when Thor spoke of his homeland. "Loki's kin."

"I escorted my brother to the gates of Jotunhiem myself," Thor pled. Loki's eyes narrowed at the familial term, but he bit back an undoubtedly withering response. "I saw him pass though and closed the realm behind him. It was sorrowful, but final. How…?" Thor's voice trailed off as he finally took Loki in fully, eyes darting over cuts and bruises and back again. "Who has done this to him?"

"The Chitauri, we think," Bruce offered. "Witnesses say he dropped out of some portal in the sky with a few of them on his tail, and two footsoilders were found dead at the scene."

"I still want to know how the Hell he got from Jotunhiem to space to Planet Earth again," Clint muttered at his shoes, upset he hadn't been given a kill order yet.

"Again," Tony snapped. "Irrelevant. We need to figure out how to get his megalomaniacal ass back to the Lonely Mountain or the Fortress of Solitude or whoever Odin banished him."

"No," Natasha insisted. "Before we do anything else, we need to know how those Chitauri managed to get back into our dimension.”

 This sparked a squabbling string of argumentative opinion-stating that soon grew into a steady buzz in which no one's point was properly made. Loki watched this bickering for a moment, one dark eyebrow arched delicately in something close to amusement, then he turned suddenly to the pathetic cell table, picking up the complimentary pen and paper with his bound hands. Loki scrawled out a sentence in a hand that would have still shamed a calligraphist and pressed the note against the glass of his prison patiently.

Bruce noticed first, tapping an irate Tony's shoulder, and soon everyone had turned to marvel at it. If you listened hard enough, you could almost hear the dry Asgardian accent embedded in the words.

_It is typically considered rational to allow a hostage to explain himself before engaging in foolish conjecture._

Loki politely gave them a moment to finish reading, then tapped at the muzzle smothering his words with a tapered finger. Tony barked out a curt laugh.

"In your dreams, Reindeer Games."

He moved to black out the glass of the containment cell, punishing Loki with darkness, but Steve caught his wrist before he could push the button. His clear blue eyes were fixed on the trickster.

"You'd be willing to talk?"

The God of Mischief nodded, then thought better of it and added an addendum to his note.

_Under condition of two small indulgences._

Clint stood suddenly, ready to deny him without hearing him out, but Natasha pulled him back down by the wrist. Steve nodded, bidding Loki continue.

_Firstly, I would request a merciful change of scenery. You all look terrible under these halogen lights and I am, surprising as it may seem, bleeding out on your dungeon floor._

Tony wasn't having it. "Nice pity play, Witchy Woman. We let you out of that cell, what's to say you won't just work your hoodoo and whisk yourself away from here, no doubt taking lower Manhattan with you?'

Bruce calibrated a few gauges on the cell computer, running a quick scan. He had long ago identified Loki's magic as a higher form of radiation, unpredictable and complex, but detectable.

 "I doubt it, Tony. He's been sucked dry from that fight; I doubt he could manage a card trick in this state. Besides, I made those cuffs myself. They're matched to the frequency of his magic, if that power so much as stirs within him, he'll have enough voltage running through his body to fell a bull elephant." Bruce gave Loki's wounds a cursory once over and grimaced. "And he  _is_ bleeding out. Much as I hate the guy, I won't have him dying under my roof. I'd be willing to patch him up if need be."

As if to prove a point, Loki swayed a little, just a small concerning stumble. Thor's eyes narrowed. Loki's lies were so spectacularly convincing that sometimes the truth got so lost he couldn't recognize it when he needed to. There was no faking those injuries though, that much was certain.

Steve nodded at Loki. "Fair enough. I can promise you medical attention and a more comfortable space if you answer all our questions. And if any of us pick up on something that so much as smacks of a lie, I'm letting Fury at you, question and answer session over. What was your second request?"

The apples of Loki's cheeks tightened a bit behind his muzzle, and Steve could have sworn he was smiling.

 _I'll be having that drink now, if you don't mind_.


	3. Sympathy for the Devil

Loki sat on the kitchen island bare-chested, a small grimace of pain on his lips and an exceptionally dry martini balanced with impressive poise between his bound hands. The muzzle had been blessedly removed, but the heavy-duty cuffs and the near-lethal streams of dormant electricity running through them weren't coming off anytime soon. Tony had calibrated most of the security measures in Stark Tower to focus on this room, everything from lasers to sleeping gas to wailing sirens, and had countered Steve's insistence that he was paranoid with a glower and another shot from the bar.

The kitchen they stood in was airy and designer, opening up into a large sitting area that looked out over downtown New York by a wall made entirely of glass. It was here the Avengers relaxed and met up between missions, and had been the site of parties, screaming matches, video game tournaments, and late night unburdening of woes over Tony's alcohol and Steve's awkward but comforting advice. It was home, and no one was entirely comfortable with Loki there, Tony especially, but when Bruce had pointed out that his medical bay was joined to Stark labs and would have given Loki a beautiful view and full access to all their research and development, no one protested.

Surprisingly though, thus far Loki had been incredibly well-behaved. He hadn't struggled or tried to pull any tricks. He has even thanked, albeit with some edge of sarcasm, Steve for his "gracious mercy". As Thor would be happy to tell anyone, his brother worked on three levels: crazy, bitchy, and actually-somewhat-pleasant-and-always-polite. Currently he was operating somewhere between the last two.

Bruce stood with bloodied hands and rolled-up sleeves behind the disgraced Asgardian, working efficiently and quietly to mend the horrendous tears and traumas he found latticed across his back. It has been difficult enough to get him out of all those complex layers of leather and armor, seeing as Loki couldn't just wish it away as he did when he was full to the brim with magic, and now the torn, bloodied costume lay in a tidy heap on the floor, leaving Loki barefoot and bleeding. Like this, with no wolfish grin or scary helmet, dressed in just his trousers and the threads of pain running through his eyes, he actually looked somewhat vulnerable. Younger. Lost.

It had Bruce and Clint swallowing pity, much as they hated to admit it, and Thor looked like he was ready to throw his arms around his brother's neck and hug him until something broke. That or pummel the living daylights out of him, it was hard to tell. Only Tony and Natasha remained cold and distant, Natasha in her trained-to-have-no-feeling-for-the enemy way, and Tony in his you-trashed-my-tower-and-threw-me-out-a-window way. Steve was doing the talking.

"Start at the beginning, if you please."

Loki nodded graciously, taking another sip of his martini. "The beginning you know. I wreaked havoc on your quaint metropolis and was ultimately…Maneuvered bodily into a position of defeat."

"Got your ever-lovin' ass kicked is the term you're looking for," Tony supplied scathingly from the bar. Steve shushed him.

"And then?" He asked Tony.

"Your truculent teammate escorted me back to Asgard," Loki drawled in his cool, light accent, eyes shooting daggers at Thor. "Where I was made to stand trial before the Allfather. It was…Interesting. There were only four attempts on my life by angry demi-gods during the hearing, it was quite insulting."

Loki winced slightly as Bruce sewed up his back. "Odin, in his  _infinite_  grace, offered me my choice of punishment. Either I would be allowed to rejoin the ranks of the Aesir, though no longer recognized as his child and perpetually  _muzzled_ ," Loki spit out the word in a hot flood of hatred and shame, still tasting the cold metal on his tongue. "Or I could accept banishment to Joutnhiem, and live forever among my blood kin."

"You chose Jotunhiem," Natasha said, arms crossed over her SHEILD jumper. None of the team had bothered to change out of their suits and it made Loki seem even more inferior in comparison.

"Obviously. Jotunheim is an icy waste and far from cultured..." Loki's eyes drifted down to the tips of his fingers, which had turned a rich blue against the cold glass of his martini, and he set it down suddenly, pressing the chilled fingerpads into his hands to restore warmth. "But at least I would not be spat upon like a dog there."

Thor spoke urgently, his voice soft but firm. "You should not have chosen Jotunheim. You know father is a man of wrath, and your sins were terrible, but he would have softened in time! Mother wanted to simply keep you on house arrest for a while, but I could see the joy in her eyes at receiving you back home. You were missed, Loki, terribly so-"

"I will not be belittled and mocked,  _Odinsson_ ," Loki hissed, suddenly vehement. "That glowering patriarch is not my father, and you are  _not_  my brother. I will not live out a servant's existence, a creature for my betters to pity and children to ask their parents how I came to deserve such a fate."

"I was your pride that damned you," Thor growled, bristling and drawing himself up to his full height. "That and your endlessly vaulting ambition. The Jotuns do not recognize you as one of their own and you've betrayed them in the past. Delivering you into their hands was suicide!"

"At least those animals are honest in their inhumanity; your kind are serpents hiding beneath the flowers of your manners!"

Steve grabbed Thor's bicep tight, yanking him back from the physical confrontation threatening to erupt. Bruce merely applied pressure to the bruise blossoming around one of Loki's fractured ribs and the god bit back a whimper of pain, thinking better of challenging his estranged brother. Bruce spoke softly as he finished sewing up Loki's back and began to wrapping ribs, his touch a little more gentle.

"I would suggest refraining from sudden movements, Mr. Laufeyson."

Loki swallowed his agony with the rest of his martini, looking mournfully at the empty glass.

"Your alcohol is potent as water and about as flavorful. Haven't you got anything stronger?"

Tony was sympathetic to this request and handed the bottle of raspberry vodka he had been nursing to the god. After all, there was no need for either of them to go through this sober. Loki nodded thankfully, filled up the martini glass and handed it to Tony, then took a swig from the bottle himself. It was the first civil exchange they'd had since he'd arrived.

Behind Loki, Bruce hissed, drawing back his hands suddenly.

"What is it?" Steve asked.

The doctor flexed his fingers curiously, lips pressed tight together. "Nothing. His own magic keeps trying to patch him up, but there's not enough of it, just the occasional green sparks that attack me like a foreign entity and hurt like Hell. Could you not do that, Loki? I'd hate to get shaky hands halfway through this."

The god shrugged. "My mind is idle. I haven't anything to concentrate on, so the sparks are idle as well."

"Well be…less idle. Count to ten, read a book, something."

Natasha snagged a copy of Cosmopolitan magazine off the kitchen table, tossing it into Loki's pale hands. She was an avid reader. Tony tried to tease her about it once. He lived to regret it.

 "Here,” Natasha said. “High quality literature from the realm of men."

Loki tentatively flipped open the magazine, the cover of which held the promise of a "healthier, sexier you" and a promo shot of a buxom Scarlett Johansen. He arched an eyebrow quizzically, running fingers over the printed letters as if they would spring to life beneath his touch, then nodded his head sympathetically at a feature story about adult sibling rivalry. Steve cleared his throat.

"You were saying?"

"I was welcomed to Jotunhiem with ice and hostility," Loki continued, striking a strange figure with his bottle of vodka and fashion magazine. "It wasn't long before the giant's thirst for my death became apparent. So I ran. They pursued. I was, it seemed, good sport."

Bruce, with all his medical training, couldn't help but notice that some of the bruises on Loki's body were very old. The thought of the god being hunted across rock terrain by vengeance-fueled creature sent unwanted pity shooting through his veins again.

"After a month in hiding, I saw an opportunity to escape the realm, so I took it. There was no other Odin-fearing territory that would accept me, so I went to find a new world, someplace quiet, a place to recuperate." Loki paused to massage his throbbing brow, sighing heavily. "Of course that plan involved entering the astral plane, observing realms with my mind's eye…"

"And that's how the Chitauri found you," Clint muttered, half to himself. He was crouched in the rafters, comfortable in his nest as always. Avenger's Tower had some fantastic suspension beams, and he wasn't' about to let them go to waste.

Loki nodded mournfully. "They caught up with me halfway through a teleportation. Their entire armada had been destroyed, and they saw my failure as a personal insult. I was imprisoned onboard their ship, kept alive for the sheer pleasure of seeing me writhe and beg mercy. I was…Hurt. Often."

His voice was quiet, calculated, but the way his green eyes stayed downcast, skimming the magazine or the tile floor beneath his feet, told the real story. Tony, who was no slouch psychologically although his talents obviously lied in the mechanical, picked out the nervous ticks and vocal patterns easily.

_Paranoia. Personality shift. Post traumatic stress. Common in prisoners of war._

"Last week I managed to escape. Blew up half the mothership in the process too, very satisfying. I thought they would let me go, chalk it up to bad luck, but the Chitauri are a very determined race, and they take their revenge very seriously. I was backed into a wall, unable to fight any longer, so I opened up a portal to whatever realm was nearest. With my luck, it was yours."

This left everyone with a heavy silence to fill and no words to fill it with. What could they say? Was sympathy appropriate? Or hard heartedness? How did you speak to Loki, anyway?

Suddenly, the TV rang. Tony, who thought phones were tragically twenty-first century, had rigged all communications to the giant plasma screens mounted around the house. JARVIS's voice rang through the house.

_Director Fury calling, Sir. And with all due respect, he sounds quite insistent._

"Great," Natasha muttered, flipping on the TV.

The image of Nick Fury blazed to life, unamused and frightening as ever. His eyebrow shot up at the image of his team gathered around a bleeding demi-god, Clint in the rafters, Banner attempting an apologetic smile, and Tony grinning like the half-lit idiot he was. Fury shook his head in disappointment, muttering a low,

"Everytime. Every damn time…It's always you six, isn't it?"

Steve stepped forward, starting an awkward, overly polite explanation.

"Sir, if I could request permission to speak."

Fury never even looked at Steve. "Agent Romanoff what the hell is this?"

Natasha nodded at Loki. "Sir, Loki is back in New York. As far as we know it isn't for malicious reasons but considering his title as God of Mischief and Lies I'd prefer not to pass judgment on his intentions at the moment."

Thor's eyes pled with Fury, full of sorrow and angry lightning. "He was hunted like a dog through the realms, for pity's sake-"

Natasha cut him off coolly, not even giving him the honor of her glance. "He was banished by Odin to the realm of the frost giants, which Thor can back up, and then claims to have escaped and fallen prey to the Chitauri. I think his injuries are proof enough."

Director Fury laughed, a sound that was a rare as it was mocking. "Karma's a bitch, isn't she Laufeyson?'

Loki's eyes roiled with darkness. "That is the expression."

"So what, you want some kind of amnesty? Come groveling for forgiveness?"

"Creatures such as I do not beg."

"Although," Steve put in tentatively. "Being hunted by three different species does qualify him as a political prisoner-"

"I thought I made it perfectly clear I didn't want to hear words out of your mouth, Rodgers," Fury deadpanned. Steve slunk back into the shadows, and Tony slid a comforting arm around his shoulders, offering him rum.

"I've already had my people check alibis and sentences," Fury continued. "And what Loki has said thus far appears to be true. Now, since he has been duly punished for his crimes against humanity, by three different species no doubt, we by inter-realm law cannot punish him again. Also, he is technically in Odin's custody, so we have no legal right over him and he's obviously injured so we are forced to offer temporary asylum, as you have done admirably, Doctor. But quite simply, he's not our problem anymore, and I want him off my planet."

"Agreed," Natasha nodded. Behind her, a tear snaked down Loki's grimy cheek, but it was probably because Banner was popping his shoulder back into joint.

Thor's voice actually broke. "What? No, you cannot surrender him to the Chitauri! They would torture him into madness! Can you not see what they have done to him?"

Fury's all-seeing eye was unwavering. "I realize that Thor, I truly do. But the only other option would be to house him here on earth, and that's just not possible-"

"It is!" The thunder god exclaimed. "We could offer my brother asylum. He is no threat to your kind. He had been broken and drained of all power. Please, he needs time to heal."

Tony suddenly found some of his sobriety and took a step forward, waving his arms. "No way in Hell. It's my tower. I say no. Fury, tell him no."

"I don't really give a damn what you do with him,” Fury responsed. “If you keep him in the Tower under surveillance, he can’t do any harm. If he was in Asgard, he couldn't do any harm. On a Chirauri ship, he can't do any harm. But it isn't you decision to make, Thor. A majority of the team would have to agree."

"And if you're crazy enough to agree it better be to keep him in a cell in the basement," Tony continued. "Because I'm not sharing a kitchenette with that thing."

"No," Steve said. "If we agree it's to keep him as a refugee under surveillance, not a prisoner. We would be voting on becoming responsible for his well-being; it would be irresponsible of us to do anything else. If we can't provide some kind of quality of life we shouldn't pretend that we're doing him any favors."

"There's six of us," Bruce scoffed, finishing his work on Loki. "Watch it come out in a tie."

"If it does," Fury muttered. "I'll break it." His face showed very clearly that he was not interested in housing Loki and could care less what the Chitauri did. "Tony?"

"My house." He shot a look to Loki. "My  _windows_. I say no."

"Agent Romanoff?"

Natasha shook her head. Loki was a liability she didn't have time for. She also hadn't forgotten their conversation on the hill carrier.

"Steve?"

The symbol of America swallowed hard, a nervous schoolboy when faced with defying his friends and superior. "I know what Loki did, but I don't think it'd be right to give him back to the Chiatauri. They had him for five months, Sir. I'd wager he learned his lesson."

Fury looked at Steve with something close to respect, then nodded at Bruce, who was washing his hands. He watched the blood spiral off his fingers and down the drain, then turned to Loki and sighed.

"You can work that magic pretty well, can't you?"

"When I am well, yes."

"Are you aware that its radiation based?"

"I have heard theories."

Bruce crossed his arms. "Would you show me how it works? Just small demonstrations here and there, a few tests."

"If you wish."

The doctor nodded. "He can stay."

All eyes were on Clint. The archer shifted in his roost, looking from the begging eyes of the demi-god to the blazing shards of flint that belonged to the woman he loved and back again. Clint was not a sentimental man, but he wasn't Natasha. He knew pain. He knew what it was like to be unmade. And as much sweet justice as it was to see Loki's mind picked apart by the Chiatauri, an unshakeable part of him told him that there would soon be nothing left of the trickster if he said no.

"He can stay," Clint muttered. "But only temporarily."

With that he swung down nimbly from his nest and strode out of the room. Fury nodded at his team, eyes resting suspiciously on Loki for a moment.

"Very well. I'll change his international status from high-priority villain to ward of the state. There will be frequent check ins, Mr. Laufeyson, and don't except anything close to freedom. You so much as step one toe out of line, your ass is mine." Fury sighed, hand hovering over the terminate call button. "I hope you all do not come to regret your decision."

And with that the line was dead. Thor went to embrace his brother, then saw the ice in Loki’s eyes and thought better of it. Steve tried to smile reassuringly, something he was always good at.

"There's a spare room upstairs. It's got a nice view. All yours."

For once in his life, Loki was speechless. Finally he muttered a quiet.

"My thanks."

Tony took this in for a moment, then let out a loud, exasperated sound and reached for his car keys.

"There is not enough alcohol in this house to deal with this. I'm gonna go get smashed. Nat?"

Natasha grabbed her coat and followed him out the door. "Way ahead of you."


	4. Poison

 "You said yes."

The familiar rasp of Natasha's voice threw Clint's aim of by an eighth of an inch, and the archer swore under his breath, refusing to turn and face her.

He stood in the industrial whiteness of the Avenger's Tower firing range, outfitted for target practice for everything from arrows to high-caliber bullets to energy blasts from Tony's suit. It was military quality and had a few bells and whistles that may or may not have been stolen from Professor Xavier's danger room. Clint had been deep into a simulation course for the last hour, since he broke the tie that gave Loki the ok-go to remain on earth. He hadn't herd Natasha come in. Then again, most people didn't.

Clint suddenly decided he was done and began to pack up his things, selecting new arrowheads for the upcoming week from the rack on the wall and wiping down his collapsible bow.

"What of it?" He said eventually.

Only now did he meet Natasha's eyes, so hidden by her aloof nature that they did little more than reflect his own gaze back at him. They gave nothing away, and it was impossible to tell if she was angry with him or not.

"It was a foolish decision."

Clint shouldered the deceptively compact case that housed his equipment, expression hardening a bit.

"It was mercy, Nat."

"And will he remember this "mercy" when he kills us all in our sleep?"

"I don't want to argue with you," Clint sighed, trying to brush past her. Natasha caught him by the arm, looking up at him.

"Why did you agree?"

"Tasha, please-"

'Tell me."

Clint dropped his bag. He put his hands on his hips, taking a deep breath.

 "You saw him. The Chitauri ripped him apart body and soul. It's a miracle he survived. They crawled around in his mind, poking at him to see what he'd do. Five months of it, Nat. Day and night. I wouldn't give the Chiatauri Adolf Hitler."

"Loki did the same to you," Natasha said coolly.

"No, he didn't. What he did to me was terrible, but…Different.

"How?" Natasha asked quietly, relinquishing her grip on his arm because she knew he would stay, lingering close. Clint's eyes suddenly clouded over with shame and hurt.

"Loki's magic doesn't turn you into a mindless zombie, you know, you keep your wits about you. It…Makes you love him, the way you love a god. Everything he says is right and perfect and all you want to do is please him, even though something deep inside you is screaming "kill him, kill him now." And he respects you and asks your opinion and you want nothing more than to see him succeed and it's sick and it's wrong and it breaks you."

Natasha set a gentle hand on the archer's chest, voice soft.

"Clint…" She swallowed. "You were deep in the enemy's council. Too deep. Loki's a liar, it's what he does, it's what he's good at. You can't believe him…"

"I know that, Nat. But that's my point. I know what he went through. I've been unmade by gentler hands and the Chitauri are the most vicious things I've ever encountered. He's wrecked and stripped of power. He can't hurt us."

"Doesn't mean I want to live with him."

"He'll be gone soon." Clint laughed softly. "If Tony doesn't kill him first. Besides, have you taked a good look at Loki? You remember your psych training."

"PTSD, I know. Hell of a lot of it too. Doesn't mean I trust him."

Clint reached out to take her face in his hands and she let him, because no one was watching.

"Then trust me, Tasha."

"You know I do. Much as I can trust a person, anyway."

He smiled, with an undercurrent of pain, and thought better of kissing her because he knew all it would earn him was a swift kick to the sternum. But he ran a calloused thumb over her lip, nodding.

"We'll get through this."

Natasha smiled, kissing the pad of his thumb before drawing away.

"If a fight breaks out between Tony and Loki, money on the god."

Clint laughed, watching her go. "I'll see it and raise you."

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Loki assimilated to Midgardian life surprisingly fast. That was not to say he didn't loathe being forced to live in chains among his enemies, stripped of all power, but he understood Earth culture better than Thor did. It was amusing, Bruce would note later, that it took a celebrated hero and god months to begin to understand why he couldn't smash glasses or wear armor in public and Loki, the black sheep of the royal family on whom no love was ever lost, was picking up on local colloquialisms and modern technology within a week. It was probably because Loki had always been the scholar, and one used to living in shadows, adapting himself to his surroundings. On his third day in Avenger's Tower, Natasha had strolled past a spare bathroom and found him sitting contentedly on the sink, cutting his dark hair to a more low-profile shoulder-length. It gave his entire demeanor a further appearance of youth, and she couldn't help but wonder that proportionally, in his endless time, how old he really was..

He had glanced up and noticed her, a slight widening of his eyes the only indication that she had surprised him.

"Still able to sneak up on me," He noted slowly, a small smile playing at his lips.

"What happened to the armor?" The Black Widow asked.

Loki had glanced down at the clothes he wore, raided nonchalantly (and obviously without permission) from Tony's considerable wardrobe. Dark slacks and a green button down, simple, his colors. Natasha had learned long ago not to ask Thor is he  _had_ to wear red again, as the god would go off on a spiel about how colors were used in noble Aesir families to indicate rank, title, and personal strengths, and she assumed that Loki played by the same rules. Thor once told her red stood for strength. She'd put money on green symbolizing intelligence. Gold for both of them, for royalty.

"Is it not suitable to your time and manners?" Loki asked, a little confused. He rubbed absentmindedly at the heavy mechanical mangles around his wrists. Bruce had adapted the SHIELD-made handcuffs into a more user-friendly model, that glowed a warning, albeit ironic, green whenever Loki’s magic started to gather and move. It gave him time to calm the maelstrom within his veins before his fifteen-second warning was over and the volts started flowing. Now the lights were out, the weapon hiding in his body entirely dormant. Natasha still didn’t trust it.

She nodded, already drawing away from the door. "Quite. You missed a spot."

Loki had taken up residence on one of the more isolated guest bedrooms and for all his past demanding of attention and showy displays of power, kept mostly to himself. He required little and rarely ate, and was civil to anyone he came into contact with, excepting Thor, of course. The god of thunder had a bad habit of lingering near Loki whenever he emerged, watching him with knitted brow and stern eyes. He always seemed stuck halfway between pining for Loki’s lost affection and wanting to throttle his brother for past injustices. His very presence irked Loki in a profound way, and the trickster god could never seem to let his once-brother pass without hissing out a smart remark. They had gotten into a few screaming matches before, blessedly out on the balcony or in a private room, and there had only been one time when an actual fight broke out.

Steve and Clint had been in the room and predictably, Thor had swung first. Neither uninvolved Avenger made any move to intervene, although Steve had idly wondered if he would have to pull Thor off before he did any considerable damage. After all, Loki was slighter than Thor and unable to use his magic.

Surprisingly though, Loki had held his own in the fight. He anticipated Thor's angry, over-estimated trajectory and dodged it, dropping low to the floor and kicking Thor's legs out from under him. The god was up in an instant and had Loki pinned to the wall by his collar, but the younger Aesir snarled and struck him across the face. It was like watching a lumbering but powerful bear attack a lithe, threatened cat. By the time Steve sighed and pulled them apart, easily holding them out to either side without exerting much of his super-human strength, Thor had a bloodied lip and Loki had a bruise blossoming along his cheek that would mar his face for some time.

That small incident aside, Loki was mostly pleasant to live with. SHIELD checked in often to make sure he was playing nice, oftentimes showing up at the Tower with medical tests, interrogation questions (they tried hooking him up to a lie detector once. He broke it.) and a new set of rules regarding what he could and couldn't do. Fury and his agents made sure that Loki knew that no matter how comfortable his cage was, he was still a prisoner. Loki passed plenty of wry comments about his captors but never resisted SHIELD's prodding, probably knowing how valuable his amnesty was. After a while the agents got tired of his scathing comments and cut the visit's down from weekly to bi-monthly.

Loki cut down on some of the sarcasm when around Bruce or Natasha, who he had strangely decided he respected. Bruce was understandable, as he had shown pity on him in the initial vote for his fate, but Natasha was still a cold harpy to him and Loki loved it. He feed off her ice and anger and admired her stone-solid resolve, seeing shades of himself in her hard-cut face. Also, he suspected there was a sweetness to her that was hiding beneath the surface, something he wanted to see that Clint, when under his thrall, had spoken about with a soft idolatry.

No one knew that Loki cared about any of them, probably not even Loki himself, until the day Natasha was poisoned. It happened without warning, and with a stark sort of finality. Death was common in Natasha's profession, as it was to Clint, and both naturally assumed that the other would die fighting in some foreign environment, good and old and angry. But when Steve busted into HQ on that August day carrying a convulsing, pale Natasha in his arms, everyone's expectations were shattered.

Clint was the first on his feet, dropping the controller for the video game he beating Tony and Bruce at and rushing to her side.

"What happened?"

Steve set Natasha on the couch as if she were a doll he may break. He seemed like a lost child, entirely at a loss for what to do.

"I-I don't know. We went out for lunch and were walking towards the car when a dart hit her in the neck. She was down in five seconds. I brought her home; it's closer than a hospital…Clint I'm sorry, I didn't know, I couldn't see anything-"

Clint squeezed Steve's shoulder, dropping into a crouch by Natasha's side.

"S'fine. Bruce!"

The doctor was already up, hoisting a medical kit down from a nearby shelf, his hand flying to the trio of tiny puncture holes over Natasha’a jugular. Tony followed quickly.

"Do you still have the dart?" He asked.

Steve was still a little shell-shocked. "What?"

"The dart, stars-and-stripes! Do you have it?"

Steve nodded, pressing the tiny military-grade projectile into Tony's hands. He examined it with a professional's eyes.

"Military-grade. Old, though. Used mostly by gangs and insurgent groups now, but ones with money…Serial looks like Europe east of Germany-"

Clint snatched the needle-tipped dart up before the billionaire could finish examining it, his eyes lit with a righteous fire.

"I know it. Russian Mafyia."

"The Mayfia?" Tony exclaimed. "How did Natasha piss off the goddamn Russian Mayfia? Is that what she does on her days off? Freaking spies, man…"

"Tasha's managed to piss off most of Russia," Clint snarled, not appreciating Tony being Tony at this point in time. The SHEILD agent turned back to Natasha as she pled his name in Russian, barely lucid, red-flecked foam showing at the corner of her mouth. Clint's expression was hard, trained for this, but when he spoke his voice broke.

" _Do something_ , Banner."

"I'm trying!” Bruce snapped. He was rifling through his first-aid kid, checking Natasha’s vitals, and injecting stabilizers into the crook of her arm with a speed that would have shamed a NASCAR pit crew. “I have no idea what they gave her; I've never seen this strain of poison before. It's working too fast for me to counteract it-!"

The situation was heady and confusing, spiked with adrenaline and moving too fast for anyone to follow. Clint gripped Natasha's hand and ordered her to stay awake in what little Russian he knew while Steve collapsed into a nearby chair, tears stinging at his eyes. Bruce threw himself into his work and Tony did what he could, running the dart's serial through JARVIS's system to try and occasionally casting Natasha a mournful glance or muttering her name with an honest concern that no one saw from him much. No one saw Loki come in.

He appeared at the top of the stairs leading to his bedroom without a sound, bare feet hardly leaving an indentation in the thick carpet. He stood there for a moment, watching Natasha's plight with a curious expression, then began to smoothly descend the stairs. Tony spotted him first, barely glancing up from JARVIS's digital readout.

"Not a good time, real power. Go back to your bells, books, and candles or whatever the hell you have in that room of yours."

Loki completely ignored him, padding around the stand behind the couch where Natasha lay dying.

"She is injured. Gravely so."

Clint's eyes could have cut steel. "Don't you dare gloat. Say one more word, and I swear on her life I'll hang what SHIELD said and put an arrow through your heart."

Loki saw the resolve in Clint's eyes and chose his next words carefully.

 "I could help her."

Bruce paused a moment, one hand still cupping Natasha's feverish cheek.

"This is no time for your games, Loki. Shoot straight with me."

"The art of healing was the first magic I learned. I am quite adept."

Bruce found himself wishing Thor was there to verify his brother's story, but the god had taken the day off to spend with Jane. Loki continued coolly, eyes flitting across Natasha's pallid face.

"Of course I can manage little more than a spark thus…restrained."

Loki shook the heavy bangles on his wrists, and Clint's scowl deepened.

"You power-playing megalomaniacal little basta-"

"JARVIS," Tony said curtly, cutting off Clint's hateful diatribe. "Be a dear and disengage Loki's restraints."

" _That command requires Doctor Banner's joint authorization, Sir."_

"Full aware. Give my A.I. the ok-go Brucey-boy."

Clint was livid. "Loki will kill her!"

"She'll die if we don't let him have a go. Besides, is he tries anything, I can pretty much guarantee he won't make it out of this room alive. Four to one; not stellar odds. Doctor?"

Bruce hesitated a moment, but he knew Natasha was beyond his care. Loki was the only viable option.

"JARVIS…Do as he says."

The A.I ran a stream of code through the Tower mainframe and the hydraulic hinged on Loki's bracelets hissed and popped open. The god of Mischief threw the restraints at Bruce and massaged his stinging wrists. Loki breathed deep of the free air, letting his magic course through him unbridled. His eyes glowed an unearthly green, and for a moment Tony's heart plummeted at the thought that maybe Loki had tricked them after all. But then the god knelt at Natasha' side next to Clint and said calmly,

"I'll need you to hold her head still. She may thrash a bit."

Clint did as he was told, catching Natasha' temples between his hands, and tried not to protest when Loki pressed a hand flat to her stomach. The Asgardian muttered low in some words no one understood and his fingers thrummed with light and energy, sending pulses of magic into Natasha's system. Her body initially rejected the foreign power, spitting it back at Loki, but Clint held her steady and the sorcerer pushed harder. Eventually Natasha submitted to the caress of green magic on her skin, letting it knit what was broken in her back together. Loki's voice layered itself magically, willing wellness and health into her veins, and after a minute fraught with struggle, Natasha's body spit the poison back out through the entry wound.

Clint let out the ragged breath he didn't know he had been holding, drawing Natahsa into his arms. She clung to him tightly, suddenly conscious and wide-eyed.

"Clint," She rasped. His fingers latticed through her hair and wiped the blood and poison from her neck. “God, Clint. I…”

“Shhh. I’ve got you…”

 After a few more moments of gentle soothing, the solider in Natasha seemed to regain control, and she brushed off her moment of weakness by pulling away from Clint and launching into a briefing.

"I saw the shooter. Heinrich Stolbach, German-born, killer for hire. Works Mafia jobs. Got a couple of alias's that you can check; if you hurry you might catch him before he skips the country."

Clint growled an affirmative, rising to go make Stolbach wish he was never born, but Natasha held him with a firm hand.

"No, you stay here. You're angry, it'll affect your aim."

Clint clearly heard the meaning beneath her words. _I'm shaken, I almost lost you. Don't leave me_. He nodded.

"Steve will go," Natasha said, pulling herself to her feet.

Rodgers looked every inch the super solider as he rose to his feet, leaning down to press a kiss to Natasha's forehead. She considered herself a teammate first and female last of all and hated the special considerations that old-fashioned Steve tried to lavish on her. But she accepted the chaste kiss this time with the tiniest whisper of a smile.

Tony loved Nat too, in his snaky god-forbid-anyone-suspect-I-care way, and showed it accordingly.

"I'll come with. Bring you back one of his teeth as a souvenir."

Natasha laughed. "You're too kind."

Tony accepted the compliment with an awkward nod, then followed Steve out of the room to suit up and kick some German ass. In the unsure silence that followed, Loki stepped forward and offered his slim wrists to Bruce.

"I threatened Miss Romanoff once. Most unbecoming of me. Consider my debt paid."

 "That's what this is about?" Clint marveled. "Making good on something you said six months ago?"

Loki shrugged, wrists still outstretched.

"Perhaps. Perhaps I'm only making a play for your pity. Perhaps I care dearly for the spider and couldn't bear to see her die. Perhaps my magic is poisoned and will kill her slowly. Perhaps I was merely bored. You assume all my words are lies regardless, so why strive for truth?"

Bruce looked at Loki hard in the face and found his expression completely unreadable, blank and listless despite the fact that he just saved an enemy's life. But he  _had_ saved her.

Bruce sighed, pocketing the high-powered bracelets and nodding at Loki's wrists.

"How about we don't and say we did?"

Loki quirked an eyebrow.

"What about your superior? The perpetually furious one?"

"I'll tell Fury I let you off on good behavior. I'll trust you to use the privilege wisely though, or it's no magic for you, non negotiable."

Loki cocked his head, looking at Bruce quizzically, then glanced to Natasha and Clint.

"Thank you, Doctor."

And with that, he was gone, retired to his room, where he would spend the rest of the night.


	5. He Blinded Me With Science

The last thing Tony expected to hear as he strolled through the automatic doors of his research and development lab, steaming mug of coffee in hand, was voices. He paused, listening intently, and picked out the soft cadence of Banner's voice, hushed and curious although its utterance might disrupt some experiment. That was normal. Maybe not _usual_  for this part of the lab this early in the morning, but normal. The other voice however, was harder to place, unfamiliar and just as quiet, with a gentle accent like cool satin on skin. Not Thor, Thor didn't understand the concept of an inside voice. So, if that was Asgardian emphasis Tony was hearing on the vowels…

The man of iron's eyes narrowed, and he threw open the far doors, striding into the room where the voices emanated from. No. No way in Hell. Not in his lab.

Loki sat on the edge of stainless steel table, bare feet dangling off the edge as he laughed softly at something Doctor Banner had said. His pale hands were outstretched in front of him, holding up a softly pulsating cube of green magic. Norse runes and strings of computer codex streamed over its face, shifting and dancing in a miniature display of magical agility and technological engineering. A fusing of science and magic. Bruce had been lusting after the concept since he saw what Loki could do on the helicarrier. Tony had thought it impossible and dismissed the pursuit. Until now.

"What the Hell are you two doing?" Tony growled.

Loki looked up, emerald eyes flitting over him smoothly before dropping back down to the wonder at his fingertips.

"Good moning, Anthony. You look…rugged."

Tony ignored the fact that he was still in the shirt he slept in and hadn't bothered to brush his hair yet and nursed his coffee with a slightly injured look.

"Bruce, back me up here."

The doctor looked guilty but not exactly apologetic, and straightened up a little from his position leaning on the table.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Tony..."

"Well, you can start by getting the enemy of all mankind out the lab which houses enough weapons, secrets and chemicals to annihilate all of the East Coast. That'd be just peachy."

"I assure you I am quite tame at the moment," Loki smiled wryly. "I promised the doctor a demonstration and I don't like owing debts. He's managed some sort of encryption as well, quite compelling. Care for a look?"

"No," Tony spat. Then he took in Loki's pinstriped button-down. "Is that my Hugo Boss shirt?"

Loki tugged at the tag at the inseam, reading it briefly. "It would appear so."

"Aw, that came off the spring line! Stay outta my stuff, Loki."

Bruce couldn't resist a small smile at seeing Tony so agitated. He was his closest friend, but it was good to see his ego taken down a few notches occasionally.

"Calm down, Tony. Loki didn't exactly pack a suitcase for his stay and Fury isn't just going to let him out of the Tower for a shopping trip. You have plenty and are closest to his size, you can share."

The man of iron grumbled, draining his mug and setting it down with a reckless clatter on a nearby wheeled trolley.

"Alright, Reindeer Games. Let's see what you've got."

In response, Loki expanded his hands and the cube broke apart into faces, suspended a few inches from each other and trembling with barely restrained energy.

"Magic is energy," The god narrated. "Spells are merely a way of harnessing it, melding it with will and ancient ties to give it direction and purpose."

"And," Bruce put in. "Loki's particular brand of magic happens to be radiation-based. It follows the usual laws and particularities, but emanates from his body, not an outside source. Because of this it has almost organic properties."

Tony found himself being pulled into the dialogue against his will. "And the lines of code here? What's that about?"

"Doctor Banner impregnated my magic with his calculations through use of some strange Midgardian device," Loki offered, brows knit in wonder at this fact.

Tony screwed up his face in sheer disbelief at the stone-age terminology, and Bruce leaned in a little with a small smile, voice a conspiratorial murmur.

"I beamed the codex through with a laser pitched to his magics’ frequency. Surprisingly effective. I'm hoping that in the future I can teach Loki the formulas and have him internalize them into the magic for a little more oomph."

"I see," Tony mumbled. "Can I speak to you for a minute?"

He gripped Bruce's elbow and dragged him out of earshot of Loki, who was preoccupied with tightening his magical screws.

"Listen, this just doesn't fly with me. You can’t trust him with my toys, Bruce, plenty of them pack a dangerous wallop. You played in the magical sandbox, great for you, so collect your data and send Loki packing."

"Tony, have you even seen what this guy is capable of?"

Tony barked out one of his sarcastic laughs. "Oh not much, just an insurgent alien army, mind control, attempted fratricide, mind-bending illusions, crimes of fashion-"

Bruce leaned in, arms crossed, a little more insistent. "He's pure energy, Tony. I tried hooking him up to monitors yesterday, just to get some basic readings. He blew every one of them out with a card trick.  _A card trick_."

Tony paused in his rant, injured. "Yesterday? How long have you been keeping me out of the loop?"

. "A few days. I'm sorry, but you never would have gone for it had I asked-"

"And I'm not going for it now!"

"The man's incredibly intelligent, Tony. A scholar at heart, well-read and critically thinking. He's completely enraptured by Stark technology; he's spent the last three days trying to understand everything you've ever invented."

"All the better to kill us with," Tony hissed, although there was a twinge of softness in his bitter heart at the thought that a power-crazed god of mischief was a fan.

Bruce sighed, remembering how exhausting arguing with Tony Stark could be. "Well right now he's supporting your entire mainframe with a battery that took him two days to craft from scratch. Better stop him. God forbid he do something constructive."

Tony spun around just in time to see Loki press a hand bathed in emerald light to a floating computer display, turning Tony's arc-reactor blue readouts a soft neon green. The display responded with a yielding beep, and the tray which held the floor's localized arc reactor router popped out from a nearby power hub, a softly humming tower that stood at waist-height in the center of the room. Loki strolled over, carelessly plucked out the cylindrical router, and replaced it with his magical cube, which adapted it shape to fill the form perfectly.

Tony's reaction was not unlike that of a mother who witnesses a stranger picking up their baby. He sprinted over and swatted Loki's hand with a sharp slap, but not before the god slid the tray back into the power hub, locking it with a twist of his slim fingers and spark of magic.

"What the hell did you just do to my reactor hub?" Tony exclaimed, knocking Loki out of the way with his hip. His hands flew over the green readout. The god regained his balance and scowled at Tony, his honest happiness at his work shattered by a sudden hateful streak.

"Foolish creature. I haven't harmed your petty technologies."

"What he just did," Bruce said smugly. "Was power all ten floors of your RnD department for the rest of the year. I might have helped. Just a little."

He was fishing for a thank-you, but Tony wasn't about to give him that satisfaction. His fingers darted over the figures floating at eye-level, checking everything from infrastructure stability to radiation levels.

"JARVIS, how you feeling?"

_Quite invigorated, Sir._

"You're not lying to me, are you?"

 _I'm not sure I have that capability, Sir. Mr. Laufeyson's modifications have relieved pressure on all my heavily stressed systems and are now supporting your entire research and development department cleanly and efficiently. The irradiated energy is targeting any damaged_ _systems and self-repairing._

"None of the systems are damaged."

_Not to a point my sensors can detect. Mr. Laufeyson has seen to it they will never reach that need of attention._

"How's the arc holding up?"

_She's quite content, sir._

Tony was taken aback. "She? Content? What'd you do to my A.I., Loki? "

The god heaved a tired sigh, sinking heavily into a nearby chair. "The magic is organic. A spiritual and well as scientific entity. It probably linked JARVIS's consciousness with that of the arc reactor. All energy is sentient. Your reactor is obviously female in nature. Sexist, are we?"

Tony gaped. "I don't need a _sentient_  battery, witchy woman."

Bruce's voice was mild, delighted by Tony's obliviousness. "You should thank Loki for saving your egotistical ass. You know RnD sucks up power like nobody's business. With that stress relieved, the arc will burn cleaner and faster and the top level of the Tower will stop glitching."

"The Tower wasn't glitching," Tony lied. Loki sighed, running fingers through his dark hair and sinking deeper into his chair.

"Of course. I would suggest synching your mechanics up with my magic before it runs wild in your system, Anthony. The new core needs technological guidance."

Tony glowered but did as he was told, inputting commands and cleaning up loose ends in the computer program. In under a minute RnD was being run seamlessly by the self-correcting magic and Tony's infallible Stark tech.

"Radiation, magic, and technology." Bruce muttered. "Who'd have known they'd mesh so well?"

"I'm still not sold,” Tony said. “You aren't going to try and replace my arc reactor with wibbly-wobbly magicky-wajicky stuff, are you?"

"My magic relies on me to remain in proximity and energize it presence,” Loki replied. “Also, the spell begins to unravel and decay over time; not practical for long-term use. So no. I will not seek to supplant her."

Every keypad and computer readout in the room glowed with a slightly green tinge, Loki's energy signature, and Tony scowled at it, positive the color was mocking him. Then he turned to Loki, just not noticing that the trickster god seemed pale.

"You alright there?"

"A bit drained. I pumped enough magic into that cube to keep it running for at least eight months, even I feel those effects."

Tony has to admit that Loki looked legitimately exhausted. So selected a soda from a nearby ice chest (well, a hydrogen freezer that he and Bruce used as an ice chest) and tossed it to the god. Loki examined it curiously, popped the top, and sipped it, wrinkling his nose at the carbonation.

Tony pulled up a chair and kicking his feet up on the desk. “So dish. Where did you learn that trick.”

"Energy transference is the most basic study of Asgardian magic, it's very essence. It was little trouble to craft a vessel for it, especially with Banner's adaptations. I suppose I owe it to you. I did destroy Stark Tower the last time around."

Bruce leaned against a nearby desk, marveling at the green runes that ran across a computer's monitor as a screensaver.

"But Thor doesn't have any magic at all. No Asgardian I've met does. What makes you different?"

Loki laughed lightly, pulling his feet up under him. "Tradition dictates sorcery is a woman's craft. In battle, the men wage war while the women weave protective spells over their cities. I saw it happen once as a child, and was struck by ferocious women chanting at the gates, enthralled by power I saw shrouding Asgard. It sang to me, haunted my dreams. Soon I found that by listening to it, I could move things without touching them, cause others to see what I wished them to see. By the time I reached my teenage years I was determined to pursue the art, understand it fully." A little bitterness tipped his words, like silver dipped in poison, as he muttered his foster parent's names. "Odin and Frigga discouraged me, obviously. I was already strange, unlike the others. Thor won battles by brute strength and ferocious stubbornness. I danced through them with trickery and deception, or more often started them with my words. I knew my pursuit of sorcery would disappoint The Allfather, but I persisted, and the forbidden knowledge was all the more sweet for it."

Tony took this in and marveled at the slight god curled up in his lab chair. He could just imagine the awkward dinner conversations. To the untrained eye, Loki was the pale, weak, slightly effeminate younger brother of Thor. There was a soft wryness to his mannerisms and cattiness to his speech that smacked of androgyny, and in a culture where a very narrow-minded stigma of masculinity was worshipped, Loki was an automatic outsider and his pursuit of a "woman's art" would have no doubt provoked unpleasant rumors and parental displeasure.

But anyone that had provoked his anger or passion, Tony included, would attest to his sheer power and self-security, a mind sharp as forged steel and a right hook that could make you forget your own name. In some ways, Loki was stronger than Thor and always had been, because he was so accustomed to carving out a place for himself among the shadows, walking his own path and popular opinion be damned.

Tony saw the shadow of himself, barely twenty and bound and determined to step out of Howard's shadow in Loki's eyes, and smiled.

"I can respect that."

Tony stood, walking to the shelf near Loki and glancing down at him as he rearranged the items Bruce had been rifling through.

"You're just full of surprises, aren't you?"

The god of Mischief gave a small smile. "So I've been told."

Tony plucked up a small electric baton, twirled it between his fingers, and carelessly shocked Loki in the shoulder with it. It was thoughtless, typically Tony; follow up what could have almost been a heartfelt compliment with a practical joke. But Loki reacted violently, in a way no one in the room could have expected.

He snarled like an animal, eyes wild, and a halo of raging green and gold magic fizzed to life around his hands. He threw them up in front of his face, and Tony stumbled back into the shelf, sure Loki was going to decimate him. Then he noticed that the god's posture was not offensive. His arms were crossed in front of him, palms up, knees drawn into his chest, head jammed down beneath the shield of magic. An instinctive defense. Pure terror.

Tony realized that Loki's reaction had shocked the breath out of him and pinned him to the wall, and he took a shaky step forward, voice a little softer than usual.

"Loki"

The god shakily dropped his arms and dimmed his magic, but kept his knees pinned to his chest. It wasn't that he didn't want to abandon the posture that made him appear weak and childish, he simply couldn't. His voice was barely above a whisper.

"Please never touch me in such a manner again."

Tony was struck speechless, which was a feat, and Loki had said please, which was another. Bruce caught on fastest of all, the realization dawning on him with a sick sort of weight.

"Electric shock. The Chitauri. They-?"

"That and more," Loki snapped, rising smoothly and turning to go with what little of his dignity he had left. Tony stepped forward and called after him,

“You’re not okay.I saw it in your eyes.”

Loki stopped but didn’t turn around. His fingers curled into fists.

Bruce stepped forward slowly. "Listen, I've been meaning to ask you about this. You've been on edge since you got here, still haunted by what happened on that ship, I'll bet. We have a word for it on Midigard, post traumatic stress-"

Now he did spin to face them, violently and with bared teeth. "I desire neither your pity nor your wretched prognosises! You are pathetic excuses for confidants, broken creatures all of you! I am recovering, I am stable, I-I have no use for your questions." Loki's breath caught and he became panicked, needlessly so. "I will not indulge your sick, human curiosity at my injuries! I can't-! I…I c-cant…I can't breathe."

With that ragged plea, Loki was on his knees, one palm pressed to the ground, the other clawing at the suddenly suffocating collar of Tony's shirt. His breathing was near nonexistent, coming in raspy, hyperventilating gasps. It was inexpressibly strange seeing the most powerful known being in the universe succumb to a panic attack, terrified, angry tears escaping his tight-shut lids.

Bruce was on the ground in an instant, one arm snaking around Loki's shoulders. The god tried to push him off, attempting a withering comment, but the struggle to speak stole too much breath. The room began to close in tighter, images of a dark cell escaped flashing before his eyes.

Tony had absolutely no idea what to do. He stood there like an idiot, staring down at Bruce as he wrapped Loki tight in his arms, muttering soothing things he had learned in medical school, phrases and questions that anchored Loki to reality. In a few moments, the proudest, most unflappable creature the billionaire had ever met had been unmade. And Tony was entirely responsible.

After a moment, Loki's gasping cries subsided into labored, slow breaths, and Bruce gingerly let go. Offering Loki comfort a moment too long was a wonderful way to receive verbal decimation and the coldest shoulder this side of the nine realms, and he didn’t want to push his luck.

Loki heaved himself up, leaning heavily on the nearest counter, and his eyes met Tony's.

"My mind has been more friend than foe as of late, I'm afraid."

Tony's eyes suddenly found his shoes. Was this…Shame he was feeling? Funny.

"Sorry," He mumbled.

Bruce crossed his arms, looking squarely at Loki.

"That happen often?"

"With the right stimulus…Yes."

Tony suddenly found his empty coffee mug fascinating on the word "stimulus", plucking it up and examining it.

"Tell me about them. The attacks," Bruce persisted.

"No," Loki snarled. "I need not your mockery."

"Loki, I'm trying to help you."

"You could not possibly understand."

Tony was suddenly sober, meeting Loki's gaze. Hazy memories of an underground prison, laced with sand and heat and punctuated by shouted commands in Middle Eastern languages threatened to surface, but he swallowed them along with the package of frozen blueberries he had found in the ice chest. "Oh, I wouldn't say that."

Loki drew himself up to his full height, wiping his face and smoothing his hair.

"They come suddenly and linger. Sometimes for a minute. Sometimes for days, in the back of my mind. The tiniest thing will remind me and then…I am undone. I remember it. Taste the blood, feel cold metal on my skin. Then I cannot breathe, like on the ship when they would drown me…Did you know the Chitauri can conquer death?" He asked suddenly, quiet and chilling. "They push you to the edge, then let you taste death, tease you with her sweet embrace…Then you wake up and you're whole and living, ready to be ripped asunder for the thousandth time."

"My god," Tony muttered, shaking his head subtly. "What did those animals do to you?"

"Plenty," Loki rasped.

Bruce sighed gently, dark eyes watching the god. "You're not well, Loki. No amount of willpower will make the nightmares go away. Please, I know . Let me help you."

Loki shook his head sharply. "I'm done talking. You've had your fun. I _will_  recover." He spoke this last part intently, willing it to be true. And then, gently. "May I go now? I've done what I promised."

Bruce paused, wanting to force Loki to stay and talk, but he knew the trickster didn't work that way. He shared on his own terms, when it benefited him and only when he had the emotional, mental, and strategic upper hand. These were not his terms. Bruce looked to Tony, then nodded.

"Yeah. Go ahead."

 

 


	6. Tempted By the Fruit of Another

Loki cherished solitude above all things. He had since he was a child. It wasn't that he was socially inhibited or disliked people-- he could be as charming and vibrant as Thor when he pleased-- but after a while societal interaction became exhausting. He was never one to wear a host weary with parties stretching into the wee hours of the morning (like Thor) or feel unloved through long stretches without doting attention (like Thor). He had never been coddled to the point of spoiling as a child, and so was accustomed to solidarity and took what rare praise he could get without expecting it. If anything, he liked it. People didn't expect so much from you then, and you could surprise them and keep them guessing. In short, Loki needed privacy, and he would often, after being bombarded by the voices of others for so long, retire to the sanctuary of his own mind.

But now, the quiet, lush fields of his psyche were barren and twisted, scarred by the wrongs done to them. Specters haunted these plains, finding open wounds and jamming needles of panic in them at the slightest provocation. His very imagination had been corrupted, and spent the long stretches of the night weaving hellions and incubuses to slip into his dreams. There was no rest for Loki. Not even in sleep.

He sat curled up on the couch in the Tower living room, trying to remember what it was like to be truly alone, without the whispering demons in his head. He kneaded his throbbing brow, trying not to think on what had happened in the lab earlier that day. The man of iron had seen his weakness, and he had allowed the Doctor who housed the monster to offer him pathetic, base comfort. He didn't need their pity. He was a displaced king. A god among men.

The setting sun out the window caught the edge of the brushed steel table before him and winked. Loki saw the gleam of a Chitauri knife.

The Asgardian furiously wiped a stray tear off his cheek, teeth gritting together.

Loki sensed a presence behind him, recognized the brisk step and lingering scent of motor oil and mojitos, and rolled his eyes

"At the risk of sounding rude, I do not wish to see you at the moment, Stark."

Tony shrugged, stepping forward and sitting down on the end of the couch furthest from Loki.

"At the risk of sounding like, well, myself, I don't really care." Tony paused to take a breath, glad that Loki didn’t turn him into a toad or some such at the insubordination. "Listen, I came to apologize…"

Loki laughed, sharply and insincerely. "The great Tony Stark degrades himself to recompense!"

"I'm sorry for triggering you in the lab. It was careless."

"You could not have known any better."

"True," Tony muttered, popping his legs up on the table. "But I do know what you saw." Loki opened his mouth to snarl a retort, but Tony held up a hand, silencing him. "Let me rephrase; I know what it was like to see whatever you saw. I know about the nightmares, and the paranoia. The panic attacks that come at the worst time, when you're least expecting it."

"You know of Chitauri torture, Anthony? Your very existence has been defined by the quality of sadistic entertainment you offer, how delightful you immortality is when paired with white-hot chains and electric knives?"

Loki's voice was poisonous, but laced with the curiosity that Tony had been hoping to provoke.

"Can't say that I do. But I know what it's like to be a prisoner, treated like an animal and only kept alive for one purpose."

"I do not understand," Loki said softly. More curiosity, painful amounts.

Tony sighed, bracing himself. Story time.

"I was captured by, no, sold out to a group of particularly vicious Middle Eastern terrorists by a man I regarded more highly than my own father. I was held there for a damn long time and tortured until I agreed to build them nuclear weapons. I lost a good man and a lot of my sanity I was there and almost didn't make it out alive. I thought it was over; I started calling press conference and working on new projects as soon as my feet hit American soil. It wasn't."

Loki found himself pulled into the story, the first few layers of his icy façade melting away as he uncurled his legs from underneath his body and titled his head.

"You suffered as I do?"

"Yes. And I thought that if I kept working and pretended like it wasn't there, kept telling myself I was fine and pushing myself harder, that it would go away. Pepper eventually had to call a doctor, because I wouldn't do it. I refused to believe that I was damaged. But I was. And so are you."

Loki gazed cryptically out the window. "I am weakened…"

"No. You're human." Tony, always one for precision, rethought it. "I mean, Aesir. Jotun, whatever. Doesn't matter."

"Why do you suddenly care?" Loki demanded. "What am I to you besides a pet?"

Tony laughed at this. "Pet? God no. Never that. You're, uh…" He had to think about it. "You're a risk. And a mystery. And a damn good shot when it comes to hurling people out windows. You're Loki. And you're Bruce's friend; he wants to see you get better."

"Friend?" Loki scoffed haughtily. "You are my captors."

"Don't try to play me, Laufeyson, I know better than most that if you really wanted to, you could whisk your magicked ass right out of this tower. You've stayed of your own free will and been a perfect guest." Tony paused, his own curiosity showing through. "Why?"

Loki smiled bitterly, and it broke Tony's heart. "I have nowhere else to go." He paused, pressing his thin lips together, and then queried, "Did anything…Good come out of your imprisonment?"

Tony grinned broadly. "Not much. Just the iron man suit. Perfected arc reactor. Multi-billion dollar corporation. My joining the Avengers. Working up the guts to ask Pepper out. Stuff like that."

Loki's green eyes fell from Tony's face to the reactor glowing lightly through his Led Zeppelin T-shirt, and he pointed. "This is smaller reactor, yes? What you power this great fortress with?"

"The one and only."

"May I see it?"

This gave Tony pause. He was used to people wanting to see the reactor, but he wasn't a trick pony and had never fancied the idea of flashing what was keeping him alive. But Loki was being civil and the balance here was delicate, so he shrugged and began to awkwardly wriggle out of his shirt.

"Sure."

At the affirmative, Loki merely pressed a palm to the reactor through Tony's shirt, rolling his eyes at the other man's presumptions. He looked beyond Tony, eyes clouding over with swirls of green magic, and his fingertips vibrated lightly with gentle power. Tony felt the electric tug on the reactor and surrounding flesh, and tried not to feel queasy, remembering that magic was just a sub-set of science. After a moment of "looking", Loki dropped his hands and flexed his fingers.

"She's a beautifully crafted instrument. Soft-spoken but powerful. The magnificent work of a magnificent mind."

Tony took the sincere compliment in the best way he could, with a smart-ass remark.

"Again with the female pronouns. Are all my tech dames?"

Loki grinned. "Apparently. Perhaps you were destined to have a brood of daughters, Anthony Stark." His smile wavered a little at the edges, then he added. "You may tell the Doctor that if he still wishes it…I shall speak with him."

Tony nodded respectfully, and at that moment the main door swung open. Pepper strolled in with her usual warm, professional demeanor, carrying a laptop in one hand and latte in the other.

"Tony, I brought you those overseas specs we talked about. Like I said, I'm just not seeing integration being feasible at this point in…" Her voice trailed off as she noticed the slim god sitting next to her boyfriend on the couch. She knew the Avengers were offering Loki refuge (who in the SHIELD loop didn't know, gossip, and speculate about it?) but she hadn't actually seen him yet and was expecting something a little more menacing. "Oh my. Loki Laufeyson, I presume?"

The god rose smoothly, dark demeanor replaced by the charm and smooth speech he was so known for.

"At your service. And you are the lovely Miss Pepper Potts of whom Tony so extolls?"

Pepper was taken aback, but carried herself as if she spoke to inter-realm fugitives everyday. She was a CEO, after all.

"That's me. A pleasure."

She set down the laptop and extended her hand for a shake. Loki took it without a second glance and brought it smoothly to his lips, kissing her knuckles chastely in the manner in which he was accustomed.

"His words do you no justice, madam. You are fair as marigolds and Alfheim sunlight, with a demeanor sharp enough to rival the wisdom of Freja."

"Welll…Yes, okay." She looked over Loki's shoulder and mouthed a large  _what?_  to Tony, who just shrugged. She turned back to Loki and smirked. "He talks about me, huh?"

Loki dropped her hand and clasped his own behind her back, bowing slightly. "Upon occasion with stumbling description and careless detail, but I suspect he cares highly for you."

Pepper almost laughed. She was talking to the man who tried to subjugate her race and he was complimenting her. All before lunch. Go figure.

"You don't have that trouble with words, do you?"

Loki's eyes sparkled, pure mischief. "It isn't in my disposition."

Pepper sipped her latté. "So how are you enjoying your stay Mr. Laufeyson?"

"Oh, it's been quite restful."

"No new plans of world domination?"

"No, I find those endeavors tiresome. Becoming the bane of your beau's existence is much more rewarding."

Pepper did laugh this time. "I like you."

"I reciprocate the sentiment."

Tony watched the exchange open-mouthed. Loki was on fire. He did know Pepper was  _his_  girlfriend, right? Or maybe he was just being annoying for the sake of it. An idle god of mischief had to entertain himself somehow.

Pepper nudged the laptop towards Tony. "Here's your specs. You don't need me, right?"

"What?" The billionaire exclaimed. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to show Mr. Laufeyson around the Tower. If I know you, you haven't bothered to give him a proper tour. Would you like that, Loki?"

"It would be a delight."

Tony was speechless as Pepper linked arms lightly with Loki, heading for the door.

 "Come on,” She said. “Lets go make Tony jealous."

"Ooh, splendid idea."

"Tell me how I'm like morning glories again?"

"Marigolds, my dear. A delicate beauty spun from sunlight."

They disappeared down the hallway, chatting amicably, and Tony sat there dumbfounded for a moment. Pepper was just kidding; she was always saying she was going to find a way to get back at him for being such an outrageous flirt. She  _was_  kidding, right?

Tony was on his feet in an instant. "Hey, Pepper?"

He could hear her conspiratorial laughter paired with Loki's teasing voice down the hall.

 "If you want her, come and claim her!"

Tony would search for the next two hours until he found Pepper in the bar with Natasha, drinking and laughing. She would deny ever having left with Loki and Natasha, who had a dark but robust of humor, would back her up. In his room, Loki listened in on Tony's distress psychically and smiled. He would of course explain that it had all been a joke and that he had no interest in Pepper, sweet though she was. Eventually.

 


	7. Sweet Dreams Are Made of This

Loki stood on the large wraparound balcony that rimmed the upper level of Avengers Tower, looking out contemplatively at the city he had nearly leveled half a year before. It was strange seeing New York from this vantage point; the victor's podium, the building that housed the hope of the world. Loki was not a part of this hope; he had once been the darkness that threatened to swallow it. But now? Now he was something different entirely, and pondered over how to categorize himself as he caught lumbering Thor's step behind him.

"Thor," Loki noted. It was neither welcome nor forbiddance, a simple statement of fact.

"Brother," The god of thunder sighed.

Loki turned smoothly to face him, the scowl the always accompanied Thor's presence fixed firmly on his face.

"Why do you insist on calling me that? It hardly has meaning anymore."

Loki tried to brush past his once-brother, heading for the cool sanctuary of the tower and probably the cave-like atmosphere of his own room to brood, but Thor caught his arm firmly. Loki hissed, trying to wench away, but there was no fight in Thor's eyes.

"Loki please, I mean you no ill-"

"Says the exalted to the damned. How can you, when I am so little and you are so great?"

"I only wish to speak with you."

The god of mischief retracted his arm but forced himself to stay there, facing the man he hated as much as loved. Best not think about that last part, it hurt too much. But it was lunacy to think that he could avoid talking to Thor much longer; he had been living in the Tower almost a month and civil agreements and common ground had been reached with every other Avenger.

"Then speak, if it plagues you so."

Thor swallowed a jubilant smile at this; best not to appear too eager. So he crossed his arms and cleared his throat, pretending as though he had any idea where he was going with this.

"You, ah, look well. Do you find your accommodations to your liking?"

One of Loki's eyebrows snaked up in disbelief. Thor was going to make this the most idiotic, blundering conversation to ever transpire between them. Wonderful.

"They are more than ample," Loki said dryly, sinking into a nearby patio chair. "I have adjusted quite well."

"I can tell! You seem to understand this strange realm better than I, and after so little a time! Tis admirable."

Loki grunted an affirmative, wondering why Tony had an open bar on every damn floor of the Tower and not on the gigantic balcony where Loki was trapped.

Thor shuffled his feet a little. "I am…Truly sorry about Jotunhiem. I would not have had it so, but father would not be swayed-"

"I understand. You gave enough protesting and awkward, affectionate farewells at the gates. I was sick for weeks from the sweetness of it."

To Loki's surprise, Thor laughed heartily, sitting down across from his brother, swinging his legs up on the table with a light thump. "I have missed you, brother."

The familial term slipped out from years of use, and Thor went to apologize, but Loki let it slide.

"What could I have done to make you say that? Was it trying to get you banished to Midigard for all eternity or attempting to take over said realm when that venture failed?."

Thor's smile only broadened. "This! Your wit, your razor sharp tongue! You mind for strategy and trickery." Here Thor paused, feeling the overhanging awkwardness even though his incredible ineptitude of social cues. "You, Loki. I have simply missed the pleasure of your company."

Loki said nothing, merely crossed his arms and gazed out over the city, set ablaze by the amber hue of the setting sun. There was a mutual understanding between the two of them here, something they had done since they were children. Loki was the silvertounge, he could talk Thor in and out of any mess his brother chose, but after a certain point, when Thor had done something truly hurtful, Loki stopped talking. And he didn't start again until Thor had said the right thing. Sometimes it took a moment. Upon rare occasion, weeks. But Thor always figured it out, and he recognized the tightness in Loki's expression as inviting him to fix what he had broken.

"I'm sorry I allowed my glory to overshadow your own when we were boys, that I didn't see how father played his favorites."

Loki scoffed audibly at this, but said nothing, so Thor persisted.

"I made use of your confidences and talents without ever considering that you did not exist merely to support all my endeavors, that you had aspirations of your own. Many of which I, in my ignorance, mocked and belittled."

Another grunt.

"I do not condone your actions, and my heart is still rent in two over the pain you caused my friends, but perhaps now, I understand them. Please, Loki. Say something."

Loki looked at his once-brother, still annoyed at his presence, but there was a thin smile playing at his lips. "Such fumbling words, brother. Little substance with lesser art. Have I taught you nothing?"

Thor laughed lightly, scratching at the scruff of his beard with a smile. Brother. It had been too long since he heard that word from Loki's lips.

"Good to see you haven't changed. So…Do we have an accord?"

Something cold and bitter grew in the pit of Loki's stomach, swallowing up the pleasant warmth that had inhabited his disposition moments before. Part of him said  _no. I will never come to any accord with the cursed Odinsson, thief of my birthright_. The other part of him said he was tired of fighting and there was no use for it anymore.

Natasha saved him from answering. She slipped onto the balcony in her silent, swift way, nodding at Thor. She seemed somewhat surprised to see him with Loki, but it didn't color her words in the least.

"Cap wants you downstairs for some press. The Daily's banging down the door."

Thor groaned, rubbing his face. Natasha smiled wickedly. "I did it last time, Goldilocks. Go smile pretty for the camera."

Thor stood, clasping his brother's thin shoulder in his meaty palm. "Perhaps we may talk in such a manner again?"

His tone was pure eagerness, a puppy begging not to be kicked. Loki sighed and swallowed his hate. "Perhaps."

Thor nodded to Natasha, then bounded into the house calling for his armor and his hammer with "all swiftness befitting a son of Odin." Loki chuckled softly to himself in his brother's absence. Some things never change.

Natasha nodded to the god. "Enjoying yourself?"

"Well, the view is spectacular," He evaded, standing to lean against the bushed-steel railing. "It rivals that of the turrets atop to throne room of Asgard."

Agent Romanoff watched him steadily, face a medley of unreadable expression. "I agree. I come here to think."

Loki straightened graciously, taking a step towards the door. "I won't disturb you."

"Sometimes I bring one of the boys out here for a talk, for privacy. And now I want to speak with you."

It was a simple statement, honest in essence but loaded with all sort of potential consequences. Loki looked at the woman warily.

"Have I misbehaved, Agent Romanoff? Father Fury hasn't called to give me a stern talking to lately, perhaps he entrusts his favored daughter with my due chastisement?"

The corner of Natasha's mouth twitched slightly, her version of an appreciative smile. "No. You've been a very good boy lately. Which is my concern." She crossed her arms, tilting her head to the side a fraction of an inch. "You saved my life last week, and for that you have my thanks. But why?"

"Death is an ugly thing. I don't often strive to keep its company."

"Eighty people. Two days."

"The stakes were different then. I was different."

Natasha did smile this time, tightly, interrogation style. "That's your play? The repentant sinner on the road to redemption?"

Loki laughed lightly, in the way that showed all his teeth and was equal parts intimidation and charm. "Hardly. That route is so blasé and I don't think anyone here would believe it. Being "adopted" into your motley crew does not an Avenger make. However…" Here he sighed, adopting some sincerity, or the illusion of it. "You are one of few mortals to best me in any way, and that earns my respect. In a more logical vein, it would do me no good to let you die when I could prove myself useful to my saviors "

Natasha absorbed this without a word for a moment, searching his body, face, and speech for the ghost of a lie. Nothing showed, but nothing proved honestly either. Loki was perfectly neutral, the ideal canvas for an invented truth, and Natasha was certain the best body language expert in the county couldn't dissect him with sharpened tools and a textbook.

In her silence, Loki added, with more than a little mischief in his voice.

"Also, the Hawk is terribly fond of you. I wouldn't want to disappoint him."

"Hellbent on the love angle, are we?"

"Not an angle if it's true."

"Clint's a professional and so I'm I. We're too close for that nonsense."

Loki looked down at her, the poster child of patronizing amusement.

"You delude yourself. Don't forget how close Barton and I were. It's completely plausible I know him better than you do."

"No one knows Clint better than I do," Natasha shot back.

"Regardless, he was trusted in my employ. Cherished, even."

"You enslaved him."

"I liberated him."

"You were doing so well, Loki. Start that power dynamic propaganda up again and I'll have no choice but to punch you in your poisonous mouth."

The trickster sighed, bored with physical threats. He hadn't verbally sparred with anyone in a while, and Natasha had proven herself worthy of his adversity plenty of times before. He continued to try and draw her out, earn her best game.

"I don't suppose he remembers anything, and it's probably better that way. He breached such a trust, spilling out any secret I requested at the slightest provocation. SHIELD'S, his own, yours. And while some of your history was colorful to say the least, Agent Romanoff, I'm far more interested in the _way_ he spoke of you."

Natasha gave no indication that Loki's words bothered her in the least, except the cold hardening of her eyes, which spoke volumes. "And how did he speak?"

Loki's voice became a little more soft and caressing, calculatingly so of course, but also because hurting Natasha wasn't the point here. He'd done that before, with mixed results. No, he just wanted to prove a point, have a little fun. This thought gave him pause. Wasn't that all he had ever wanted, until things spiraled so unimaginably out of control?

"With unparalleled respect and the truest, rock-solid devotion. He detailed you to me as an artist does his greatest inspiration, with worship and wonder. He told me about Dreykov, yes, your ledger dripping red, but only in terms of how magnificently complex it made you. How beautiful."

Natasha turned to go. "I don't appreciate flattery."

Loki held up an elegant hand, stopping her. "I'm not trying to manipulate you, Miss Romanoff, I'm only telling you what Barton told me. The method I used to…Procure his services, it doesn't work in the way you would think. The staff controls the heart, makes it stronger and more devoted towards an outside influence. But it also breaks down lies and defenses. He spoke the truth to me, casually, as if he had known me his whole life. And the truth is, The Hawk loves you dearly. And he knows that on some level, no matter how hidden or repressed, you feel the same."

"Clint and I have always been close," Natasha murmured, deadpan, unfazed.

"Why this vehement refusal to recognize love as a factor, Agent Romanof?"

"Love is a fantasy, the sum of varying parts. Affection, devotion, lust, convenience, infatuation; all human traits that when brought together often lead to weakness. They're certainly not mutually inclusive."

Loki caught the tiniest hitch of breath on the word "weakness", heard the sharpening in Natasha's voice, and smiled down at her in triumph.

"Ah, weakness. Are you afraid to be weak, little spider, that Clint will make you so?"

"Attachment is a liability in my profession," She conceded.

"Clint doesn't think so. He thinks unity on such a level would make an unstoppable unit of the two of you. He's willing to try. But you know this already, darling Natasha. He's told you. And yet you continue to ignore it."

Natasha's mouth tightened. She hadn't been expecting him to know that.

"Be truthful with me now," Loki sighed. "Because I have naught to gain here. Do you love him?"

"I trust him with all of me."

In Natasha's language, that of freedom fighters, killers and spies, that meant yes, I love him much as what I've been made into will let me. Loki took a moment to drink it in, once again marveling at how cut from ice and steel this woman was. He laughed softly.

"May I call you Natasha?"

"No reason why not."

"Nat?"

"Not yet."

"I like Natasha better at any rate." He leaned against the railing, comfortable in the presence of someone he considered (within in reason, she _was_  a human) his equal. "I would like to apologize for my insensitive words on the helicarrier. While I'm sure they didn't sting quite as much as you let on, they were false nonetheless. You are no mewling quim, Natasha. Your ferocity of spirit is worthy of a Valkyrie."

"Valkyrie?"

"They are female warriors native to my homeland, trained since childhood in the arts of diplomacy and war. They descend upon Midgardian battles on winged horses, fighting along armies they find worthy of their favor. Or they did, until the worship of my people died out."

Natasha nodded at this, more than pleased with the analogy. "Thank you."

"You know," Loki added, taking a risk. "The Valkyries also escort men who died in the glory of battle to the halls of Valhalla, our…" Loki searched the literary database of his brain for a word Natasha would understand. "Heaven. Sometimes, if the man be truly exceptional, they even fall in love. But the Valkyries outlawed marriage long ago for fear that uniting themselves with a man would make them weak, open to subjugation, so they live chaste lives, content with their training and their warring. But occasionally, one of them finds the strength to disobey."

He turned, beginning to leave, but paused at her shoulder, muttering a final word,

"Rebel Valkyries and their warrior husbands were always welcome at the table of Odin. I was taught to extend the samesuch courtesy."

And before Natasha could get a word in edgewise, he had slipped into the house, leaving her on the balcony with her thoughts.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That night, Loki had a nightmare. The waking-up screaming and fighting for your life Chitauri kind. He hadn't been awake for more than a minute, still horrified and trying to separate fantasy from reality when he felt someone kneel next to him on his bed, place two solid hands on his shoulders and squeeze gently. They spoke gentle Aesir words, ones learned at a queenly mother's knee when two brothers who had listened to one too many ghost stories refused to turn off the light for fear of what may hide in the dark.

Loki had no idea why it  _had_  to be Thor who was up and restless and heard his distress at two in the morning, or why he took the time to slip into his room and talk him out of the panic that threatened to consume him. He wanted to throw him away and hiss at him for encroaching on his privacy, but he was so very tired. Of fighting his brother, of denying his own weakness, and of nights spent accosted by the horrors of the past. So he let Thor walk him down to Bruce's room, who received them both with surprising hospitability for two in the morning. Loki sank into an armchair and he talked, and Bruce took notes, and Thor listened with horror in his eyes but he never left. And when Loki finally fell asleep at five in the morning, agile tongue tired from spilling out his heart, Thor kept watch over him to make sure the demons didn't return.


	8. In the Mood

Adaptation is a strange thing. You can put someone in the worst situation possible, a broken family, times of war, an abusive relationship, homelessness…And they adapt. While the severity of their predicament is no less pressing, they find little things in it to give them happiness and they work around what is truly crippling. Their world changes, yes, but they change with it.

Loki had always been extremely adaptive, but he was beginning to wonder if he wasn't developing some unconventional super-villain strain of Stockholm syndrome as the weeks crept by in Avenger's Tower. He was still a prisoner, yes, still Loki Laufeyson, bane of the nine realms, but he certainly didn't act the part. He hadn't been able to keep up his anti-social antics for very long, and found the Avengers disgustingly easy to live with. Steve was sweet to a fault, Bruce had long ago become confidant and research partner, Natasha was the most delightful sort of mystery, Clint retained all the good qualities Loki had chosen him for in the first place, and much as he hated to admit it, Tony did have a certain egotistical, drunken charisma. He kept finding himself drawn into the rooms they inhabited out of sheer boredom, and they more than tolerated his occasional presence in their conversations and. Tony often criticized him for his quietness and Thor  _tried_  to get him to fraternize, for Yggdrasil's sake.

It was extremely surreal, casually speaking to, working alongside, and  _ever so rarely_ , taking his meals with the Avengers. What was stranger was that the rightful occupants of the Tower had dropped most suspicions of him, after he proved himself again and again to be useful. But what was normal anymore? He was displaced from his home world and under a forgiving veil of amnesty; everything was different now. Did he even truly dislike these people, or merely the threat they had posed to his previous operations? Did Thor and Bruce really mean it when they treated him with respect and affection, called him friend? It was exhausting to work out.

So Loki stopped trying. He allowed himself to adapt. And it was unexpected, yes, but not uncomfortable or uncharacteristic when he wandered down from his room after a nap one day simply out of curiosity as to what the others were doing. No surprisingly, Tony was talking.

"Seriously, who gives anybody a freaking record player? It's obsolete and garish. Clashes with the décor. Let's give it to the orphanage or something."

"The historical society gave it to us Tony, so be nice, and it's hardly the strangest gift The Avengers have received," Came Steve's calm observation. "Remember MacDonalds?"

"A lifetime of free burgers, Steve, a lifetime. That's downright American, you should respect that."

Loki strolled down the stairs to the living room, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Tony stood with drink in hand, watching skeptically as Steve set up an early twentieth-century victrola in the living room. Clint sat with Natasha on the couch, watching the exchange with barely-contained amusement.

"Oh calm your techno-savvy self down," The archer said. "I think it's neat."

"You still use bows and arrows, Robin Hood, and I'm fairly certain you were around to usher in the age of men in Middle Earth. You  _would_  like something old and useless."

Natasha wrapped a magazine up tight and swatted Tony in the behind with it like a naughty child. Then she caught sight of Loki and held out her hand to him.

"Good morning."

The god ran fingers through his slightly disheveled hair, leaning up against the couch and squeezing her outstretched fingers gently. For whatever reason, since their conversation on the balcony, the two had come to a mutual respect that was dangerously close to friendship. Tony had pronounced their conversations and appreciation of each other's company "weird-ass", but he often commandeered Loki for hours at the time to work magic in the RnD lab over coffee and Oreos, so he couldn't talk. Loki had found coffee suited his tastes, along with peppermint, tomatoes, pistachios, chocolate, lemons and a host of other Midgardian foods.

Natasha tugged at the hem of his T-shit, well worn and working very hard to swallow him. "Isn't this Steve's?"

"Yes, he was kind enough to lend me some of his apparel. Apparently the man of iron tired of my thievery."

"I have more security measures over my closet than the inner sanctum at Fort Knox," The billionaire muttered sullenly. "I  _will_ figure out how you do it someday, mark my words."

"They're too big for you," Natasha frowned. Loki shrugged.

"They will suffice. Anthony's clothes fit strangely as well. Why are all your jeans so tight?"

"Because I'm a badass, that's why. Hate to say it, Rudolf, but you need clothes of your own. You can't keep jacking mine, and Steve isn't anywhere near your size. Bruce and Clint are both too short and Thor's built like a bull elephant. Of course, there is always Natasha. I think some of her dresses would suit you splendidly."

Natasha glowered in response, warning her comrade not to willingly provoke the mercurial creature who they had worked to make feel comfortable in their midst, but Loki was not fazed in the least. He merely reached out and plucked up Tony's glass, breathed into it, and handed it back. The whiskey sour was frozen solid.

Clint cackled at this, high-fiving Loki. The god indulged in a small, genuine smile, then nodded to the record player.

"What is that? Not one of your inventions, Anthony?"

"Hardly," Tony laughed, then with slight annoyance in his voice, "And the last person to call me Anthony usually did so in chastisement of his son's actions. Seriously, it's Tony, and tell your brother he can stop calling me "Friend Stark"."

"I like Anthony, it irks you," Loki said sweetly, prompting a snicker from Clint. He went to the record player, pressing his fingers to its gilded bell. "What does it…Do?"

"It plays music," Steve said, happy to see a familiar staple from his side of the century. "You get these, uh, disc things called records, and they have songs embedded in them. You spin them on a player and you can listen to the same tune over and over again, whenever you like."

"Fascinating," Loki whispered, as if someone had just handed him the cure for cancer.

"Show him how it works," Natasha said softly, sipping her glass of red wine.

Tony wasn't quite done with his sarcastic remarks. "And where are we going to magically get a bunch of records compatible with a late-thirties victrola?"

"I have a few," Steve muttered, almost shyly.

"You would."

"Shut up Tony," Clint said. Then he clapped his hands, an impatient child on Christmas. "I wanna see. Go get them."

Steve disappeared to go rummage around in his room, leaving Loki to plop down in his usual spot curled up in the corner of the couch that Natasha and Clint did not occupy. Tony tried to lick at his ice-cube of a drink but decided that he couldn't do so while retaining his dignity and threw it out. Steve returned a moment later with a thin stack of records in his hands, road-weary and well-loved volumes that were truly vintage. He slid one out and placed it on the player, dragging the needle over and starting up the machine. The thing whirred, than began to spin, and a moment later the heavy beat of a jazz band and hot sound of dueling trumpets spilled out, filling the room with classic swing.

Steve leaned against a nearby wall, bobbing his head happily, and after muttering for a moment about the musical value of ACDC and rummaging around at the bar for a new glass, Tony began to sway in time as well. Loki, however, was enraptured. The blaring saxophones and smooth clarinets were something he had never even dreamed possible, and though they were so very  _Midgardian_  in their simplicity, captured him completely.

Then he looked to Clint and Natasha, near enough on the couch to feel each other’s warmth but making sure never to physically touch, and Loki got a wonderfully wicked idea.

He stood, walking smoothly over to Natasha and extending a pale hand.

"If I may?"

Natasha looked up at him, pleasantly surprised. "Can you even dance?"

"I was a prince of Asgard. Of course I can dance. The question is, can you?"

"I'm an international spy. Of course."

And with that, Natasha handed Clint her wine, took Loki's hand, and led him into the center of the room. Steve looked shocked but delighted, and turned up the music up. Tony pulled up the camera on his i-Phone. Clint tried very hard not to look or feel injured.

One of Loki's hands settled on the small of Natasha's back, the other latticed fingers with her own, and he pulled her in, grinning in his toothy way. Natasha draped an arm over his shoulder, cocking a meticulously groomed eyebrow.

"Somehow I don't think you learned the waltz and foxtrot at Asgardian banquets."

"And you don't know the ladet or feildine from any of your espionage-fraught galas?"

"I'm afraid not. Let's make it up as we go along shall we?"

"Yes, of course," Loki laughed, then spun her sharply and brought her into a low dip.

Natasha laughed, kicking back up and starting some step that was part lindy hop, part improvisation. Loki followed her after the point where most men would be crying from confusion, adding a few unexpected change-ups and lifts to keep her on her toes. Natasha was delighted by this, part partnership, part competition, and glided across the floor like a wrought-iron butterfly.

Clint watched tight-lipped as his closest friend danced with the god of mischief. It wasn't as though he was jealous, no not at all, just…Uncomfortable. It was…well it was Natasha! His Natasha, cold as Russia in January Natasha, kill you with her lipstick Natasha. And she was all lit up and laughing from dancing with  _Loki_. I just wasn't right.

Loki noticed. Of course he did, it was the effect he was going for, and it was working splendidly. He hooked Natasha's waist tight under his arm and lifted her, rolling her smoothly off his back and straight into the dance again. Clint choked on Natasha's wine, which he had started to down, Steve applauded, and Tony started uploading videos to Youtube.

As the song came to an end and Loki and Natasha broke apart, both grinning and laughing, Loki subtly glanced to make sure Clint was watching and kissed Natasha's cheek, so quickly and dryly that would have to been looking to see it. Clint was certainly looking and his blue eyes turned to ice. Then Loki strolled by Clint, leaning over the couch to mutter.

"Best finish that drink."

"Why?" Clint said flatly, but polished Natasha’s win off anyway.

"Liquid courage, isn't that what you Midgardians say?"

And then Clint had been lifted from his seat by Loki’s firm hand and shoved bodily into Natasha. Loki walked by the record player on his way to the kitchen, bumping it with his hip and, through magic or just because he was  _that_  damn smooth, it skipped to a slower ballad over which a woman crooned about being true to her man.

Tony marveled at this as Loki hopped up on the kitchen island, drawing his legs up underneath him and watching approvingly as Clint and Natasha exchanged a few happy words and, as expected, began to dance. Awkwardly at first, but then with all the delight and intimacy they took in each other's non-musical company.

"Did you orchestrate this entire thing to get to _that_?" Tony asked, gesturing with his new drink to the couple in the middle of the room.

"Well, not the record player obviously, but I took advantage of opportunity. Surprisingly easy, too. Mortals. So predicatable..."

Steve, who had gone from being delighted to a little confused, wandered over to the bar, voice low, as if he was afraid Natasha would hear.

"Are you trying to set them up or something?"

"Naturally."

"The scary killers for hire with entangled, dysfunctional pasts and SHIELD connections; you're shipping that?" Tony hissed. "In what world is that a good idea, and why do you even care?"

Loki rolled his eyes. "Please. Don't tell me I'm the only one here who finds it torturously annoying how they gaze at one another with all the understanding and devotion on your earth, always dancing around the possibility of a romance but never allowing anything to come to fruition. The tension is suffocating; I don't like it, so I broke it. They are a well-suited match, quite similar with infinite understanding for another. The children would be hearty, with minds sharp as dwarf steel."

Throughout this dissertation, Loki and taken the drink from Tony, popped a sprig of peppermint in it from the bar, and now sipped it contentedly. He often boasted at his ability to "Talk the drink out of your hand", and as Tony looked down at the hand he hadn't realized was empty and mourned at the loss of his mojito, began to realize that Loki did not brag idly.

"Besides," The trickster said wickedly, winking in a way that was actually quite terrifying at Steve. "I was bored. In what is there more mischief than in the affairs of the heart?"

"Dancing with Nat," Steve noted, coming to a sudden realization. "You were making Clint jealous."

"Sometimes all a man needs is a threat to provoke him into action. I was more than happy to play the adversary here. Don't worry, he'll forget about it before the night's up, especially if the spider keeps looking at him the way she is now. They'll be courting before the week's out"

"I don't believe it," Tony scoffed. "No one's that good."

"I am. I'll bet you one thousand of your American dollars they'll be moved in together by the end of the year."

Steve was concerned. "Y'know, Tony, you don't have the best history with gambling…"

"You're on," Tony said impulsively, shaking Loki's hand.

Loki smiled, thinking of creative ways to spend a thousand dollars, and glanced over to Natasha. Her arms hooked around Clint's neck, face the usual unreadable mask, but her eyes…They glowed in a way no one in the kitchen had seen before. Quietly, unaware of the curious eyes turned on them and secure in the knowledge that no one could hear, Clint murmured,

"You're a wonderful dancer."

"Thank you," Natasha said, swaying gently, enjoying the weight of his hands on her hips. What she had done with Loki pure recreation, a demonstration of skill, but this was closeness for the sake of closeness, a warm, slow step that had nothing to prove. Clint looked down at her and said something he didn't have time to talk himself out of.

"Have dinner with me."

"We have dinner every night," She replied, her deceiving SHIELD interrogation face on, the perfectly open one that lied that she didn't know what he was implying.

"You know what I mean. You and me, no one else. Somewhere that's not the Tower. I'll buy you champagne; you pick the place."

"That's a bad idea."

"Why?"

"We've been over this before."

"You never give me a straight answer. Tasha. Please."

She tried not to crumble at this.  _Tasha._  Only Clint ever called her that, no one else ever dared. All the others called her Nat, friendly and familiar yes, but one-syllabled, unisex, a schoolyard nickname. Tasha was more powerful; everything feminine about her given name, like summer wind kissing bare shoulders. It was a prayer and a secret, everything they had ever trusted each other with.

"I play this game for a living," She said, pressing a little more against him. "I'm very good at it. You'll probably lose."

"I'm not talking about the game anymore, Tasha. I don't want you to pretend for me. I just want you. Just like this. Ledger and all."

She held his gaze levelly for a moment, then spoke casually, as if she hadn't just made a huge decision.

"There's a nice Thai place on the corner of Fourth and Madison. Maybe we could meet there on Friday after the debriefing and forget to invite the others."

Clint grinned. "Sounds wonderful."

JARVIS's voice interrupted the happy calm which currently held Avengers Tower in her embrace.

_Director Fury at the door, Sir, with two other SHIELD agents._

"I'm not home," Tony said automatically.

_He wishes to speak with Mr. Laufeyson, Sir._

"Loki's not home."

_Regardless, he's paying you a visit. I would suggest straightening your affairs; Director Fury has just stepped onto this floor._

Loki swore as JARVIS went offline, pouring himself a drink for a third time and resolving to keep Loki far away from it. Natasha and Clint had already broken apart and were successfully pretending as if the dance had never happened, Nat lounging on the couch while Clint casually clicked the record player off. Loki didn't move from his cross-legged position on the kitchen island, but rummaged around in his pockets until he found his magic-repressing bracelets, strapping them back on with a slight wince as they burned his pale wrists. Steve tried to look like he was in control and nudged his records underneath a nearby table with his foot. Was it sad they had a system?

Fury didn't bother to knock, rather strode into the living room in all his black-leather clad glory, as stoic and imposing as ever. Two fully-outfitted SHIELD agents lingered nearby, holding a large old-looking wooden trunk between the two of them by brass rings on the sides.

"Morning director," Steve said with a nod, hands clasped. Fury nodded back, one solider to another.

"Morning. Glad to see you all well. Where's Banner and Thor?"

"Went to go pick up shrwarma," Tony quipped, sulking near Loki. He really couldn't stand Fury. The man was a micro-manager with no sense of humor, and found very creative ways to punish Tony's childish exploits, most of which cost SHIELD a grotesque amount of time and money. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"

. "Just checking in on our inter-realm fugitive. I trust there have been no unreported incidents or difficulties since the last time I was here?"

Everyone shook their head no, choosing not to mention last Thursday, when a swell of Loki's magic had blown out all the lights on the fourteenth story, because it was Tony who had hooked him up to the mainframe and then purposefully scared him with an air horn, just to see what would happen.

"Things have been quiet here," Steve offered. "Better than expected, actually. Any word from Odin?"

The corners of Loki's mouth tightened slightly as he sipped the drink he had guiled Tony out of, eyes downcast. He was fully aware that SHIELD had opened negotiations with his adoptive father in an attempt to get Loki off American soil and back to Asgard without surrendering him to the Chiatauri. As far as Loki knew, the Allfather's opinion of his prodigal son hadn't sweetened since they last spoke, and was unlikely to anytime in the near future.

"Nothing we haven't heard already, just the usual mention of "unforgivable crimes against the throne". He still upholds the previous statement that earth is the best place for Loki at the moment. He actually does seem to care about his well-being, though, so that's a step in the right direction.

Loki growled a few Aesir words into his glass, probably something sarcastic and unprintable. Fury nodded to the SHIELD agents, who lifted the trunk and set it down with resounding thump on the coffee table.

"Frigga, however, sends her warmest regards and this chest. A few articles from home to make your stay more comfortable. Don't worry, we went through it in case of any dangerous items, even chemical tested a few things we didn't have names for. It's clean."

Loki tentatively slipped off the island and wandered over to the coffee table, looking at Fury suspiciously. The Director had never been enthused about his living situation and made no pretense towards hospitability. But this was strangely close to kindness, and didn't appear to have any ulterior motive, so Loki bowed slightly and muttered,

"My thanks."

Fury scoffed, shaking his head a little at Loki.

"Don't make me regret it, Laufeyson."

Then he turned on his heel and began to stride out. Tony was disappointed.

"That's it?" He had a whole host of new ways to annoy Fury dreamt up and hadn't gotten to try any of them.

"Unlike you, Stark, I have places to be and responsibilities to fulfill. Play nice, kiddies. I'll be watching."

And with that, he departed with his SHIELD agents, closing the door behind him. Loki knelt by the chest, running curious hands over the Aesir runes inscribed on the twin locks.

"Someone gets a package, I get to see," Tony declared, collapsing onto the couch behind Loki. "House rules."

"Since when?" Loki hissed.

"Since ever. Applies to everyone in the Tower, even Nat here. Remember that fantastic set of lingerie you had shipped in from Milan, Miss Romanoff?"

Natasha obviously remembered whatever incident Tony was referring too and vaulted over the back of the couch, landing on Tony's stomach with the grace of a gymnast and sitting there contentedly, face perfectly calm. It should have been sexy but it was actually very painful, and Tony had a sneaking suspicion it was the precursor to methods of torture and interrogation that were illegal in the United States.

Nat situated herself into a position that was a little more comfortable for her and a little less life-threatening for Tony. "I want to see too."

"Fine," Loki shrugged, because it was Nat who had asked. "It isn't as though I have anything to hide." He popped the locks and heaved open the lid. He repressed a beaming smile at the contents. "Frigga always did think of everything," He muttered, running a hand over the cool bed of neatly folded garments inside.

Steve, overcome by curiosity, wandered over and looked down into the trunk. "Judging by the color scheme, I'm guessing those are clothes from home?"

Loki lifted out tailored silks, cable knits, and crushed velvets in varying hues of black, emerald, and gold. There was also ceremonial jewelry, a chain mail undershirt, handcrafted leather belt, and a pair of riding boots. Nothing too terribly formal, not near what he wore in battle, but crafted with the ornate embroidery and expensive, complex workmanship that clearly denoted royalty.

"Haven't you people ever heard of casual Friday?" Tony muttered. "Don't you have, like, jeans in Asgard?"

Loki ignored him, breaking into a broad grin as he unraveled a cocktail dress woven from tiny sequins crafted to resemble scales, such a deep green they almost appeared black. Loki admired the fur stole attached to the shoulders, and Tony surrendered to utter confusion.

"What the Hell do you need a slinky dress for?"

Loki glanced at him as if were the crazy one, not bothering to answer as he stacked the small wardrobe off neatly to the side and reached back in to the trunk to heave out a stack of books. If he had been glad to see his old clothes, he was delighted by the leather-bound tomes in his hands, books on everything from the history of the nine realms to spellcasting to practical medicine and religious myth. Loki set these in his lap, not ready to remove them from his person as he retrieved other items from the trunk, strange mechanical baubles that looked to Tony an awful lot like otherworldly scientific instruments, Norse relics made of stone and wood that acted as protective talismans, and a rack of meticulously categorized herbs and powders that could be used for everything from basic illusions to faking death.

"Those aren't dangerous, are they?" Tony poked Natasha. "Nat, can he kill me with that stuff?"

"Probably," The spy deadpanned. "But Fury thinks they're safe and they're technically religious and cultural items, so we can't take them from him without violating first amendment rights."

"Rights? He's an immortal species from a separate dimension, I'm not sure the constitution is that far-reaching."

"He's here now and under the protection of our government," Steve said, with a blinding patriotism in his eyes that earned him his alias. "America doesn't care whether you're rich or poor, white or black, human or Aesir, everyone is entitled to basic freedoms."

"Oh my ever-loving God, you just can't turn it off, can you sparky?"

"Boys, don't make me separate you," Natasha sighed.

Loki ignored the good-natured bantering behind him and plucked out the final item in the trunk, a smartly folded piece of parchment which cointained Frigga's light, elegant handwriting. He almost didn't want to read it, but flipped the note open anyway.

_My Dearest Son,_

_I didn't have much time, but I tried to gather some things from your chambers that I knew you to favor. The clothes should still fit, and I hope your tastes in literature haven't changed; you always did love those books so. The Midgardian men wouldn't let me send very many of your instruments of sorcery, I'm afraid they deemed them dangerous, but at least now you will have some taste of home. I hope you are well, strange as life must be for you. Always know that I love you, Loki, as does your father. We are both grieved by your absence. Stay safe with these Avengers I hear such wonders of please, stay out of trouble. Perhaps you could even write occasionally? I am desperate for word of you._

_In the Hopes that We May Soon be Reuinted,_

_Your loving Mother._

Loki swallowed hard, wanting to crumple up this letter so full of what must be false affection and concern, but something stayed his hand. So he merely folded it neatly, tucked it away in his jacket and whispered one word, too softly for any of the others to hear.

"Mother…"


	9. Dude Looks Like a Lady

Tony had not woken up to a beautiful woman whose name he didn't know in his house for a very long time. It had admittedly become a habit in his pre-Avenger days, but being part of a live-in superhero team sort of ate up his free time, and there was Pepper to consider. Tony Stark was many, many things, but unfaithful wasn't one of them, provided you could twist his arm into a long-term, committed relationship. But he was absolutely crazy about Pepper; she was oftentimes the only thing in his life that kept him sane and one of the few people he'd met he that couldn't intimidate, talk circles around, or push over, which he adored.

So when he wandered into the kitchen lab to find a striking brunette sitting on his kitchen counter eating a bowl of cherries, he had to run her face through the considerable database of the women he had brought home in his Pre-Pepper years. He really hoped he wasn't supposed to know her or owed her something, ( _Oh God, not another child support scam, it's too early for this, where's my lawyer?)_ because there was no one who could get into Avengers Tower who didn't have an access code or hadn't been explicitly let in. He hadn't been stupid enough (read: drunk enough) to give ex-girlfriends access codes, had he? He hoped not.

"Good morning," The woman said smoothly, sucking a cherry pit from her red-stained lips. Funny accent, Tony noted, probably British or something. God, she was beautiful. In a sort of unconventional way, with a wide, pale brow, intelligent green eyes and thick black hair all the way down to her waist. She was wearing a dress made from dark iridescent material with a thin fur stole hanging to the shoulders, and Tony was sure he had seen it somewhere before.

"Morning," Tony mumbled, still a little fazed by her presence. He looked around awkwardly, as if someone was going to appear out of nowhere and explain everything.

"My my," The woman tsked. "You do look haggard. Another day spent playing toys with Bruce, I presume, and no doubt stretching on into the night? Your scientific slumber parties always yield such interesting results."

 _How the hell do you know that_? Tony wondered suspiciously, but aloud said,

 "Friad so. I hope I don't offend you or anything, since you obviously know me so very well, but, um, who are you and how did you get into my Tower?"

The woman laughed, a throaty rich sound that was  _so damn familiar_ , it just killed Tony. "You really don't recognize me, do you Anthony?"

"I think I'd remember those eyes."

Another laugh as the woman clapped her hands together. "Is this how you flatter all women, Anthony Stark? I admit I've never had the, ah, pleasure of seeing your special brand of charm pointed in my direction before. But yes, we've met. I looked a little different then, though."

"Fair enough. Question number two; how did you get into my Tower?"

"I spend my nights here, darling."

This statement hit Tony with sudden realization. Oh. She wasn't one of his, but it didn't mean she wasn't someone else's. Cap was out of the question, as he was too preoccupied with work to really date around. Thor had Jane, and this understated, slightly dangerous women didn't strike Tony as the thunder god's type. Bruce had been in the lab with him the entire night.

"Clint?" He asked, unsure. It was as good a guess as any.

The woman seemed annoyed by this. "Hawk loves the spider, don't be silly."

"Natasha?" Tony queried with even less conviction.

The woman merely looked at him with a tight, unamused mouth, one eyebrow arched sarcastically. Tony racked his brain. Who could she have been with? There was no one else in the hou-

"Oh! Loki! Wait, Loki? He's not…How would he have met anyone? Does Loki even-? I mean, obviously, but I was never really sure which way he swung…"

The woman made an exasperated noise, tired of his babbling. "Loki and I know each other quite well, yes, don't strain yourself thinking about it."

At that very moment Natasha appeared at the top of the stairs. She was wrapped in a vintage dress crafted from lace the color of faded roses and caramel that hugged every perfect curve without giving too much away. She was dressed to kill, but not in the literal way like when she was working, when she blinded men with skintight cocktail dresses and unbuttoned blouses while she stole their countries' secrets or toppled their corporations. This was alluring, yes, but not blatantly so, and far more breathtaking for it.

"Damn," Tony said.

"Oh Natasha," The mystery woman sighed. "It's stunning. I'd have you myself were it not for Clint."

  
"Wait," Tony exclaimed, determined to stop the surrounding conversation until he understood. "What?"

  
"There's that straining yourself again," The woman said, hopping off the counter and sauntered over to Natasha, hips swinging lightly. She pressed a friendly kiss to the assassin's temple, murmuring,

"He won't know what hit him."

A genuine smile tugged at the corner of Natasha's mouth. "I certainly hope so, with what we paid for the dress."

"Oh don't worry, I used Anthony's credit card."

Tony choked on the coffee he had just poured himself. Clint strolled around the hallway corner, stuffing his wallet in his pocket and sliding a pair of sunglasses onto his head. He froze however, when he saw Natasha standing casually in the living room, perfectly balanced and secure in sky-high pumps.

"Wow," He breathed.

Natasha smiled, walking up to him and adjusting the collar of his shirt almost absentmindedly. Her hand lingered on his chest. "You look handsome."

Tony took in the quiet, intimate exchange with a furrowed brow and agape mouth, simply growing more confused as things progressed. He put the mystery woman on the backburner, only because understanding Nat and Clint was probably a little more straightforward.

"Do you two have like a date or something?"

Natasha's steely eyes pierced him and might have well and pinned to the wall. Clint's face revealed nothing.

"Aren't you in the middle of an experiment, Tony?" He asked.

"Coffee break," The billionaire said enthusiastically, indicating Clint with his mug. "But seriously, what are you crazy kids up to?"

"We're getting dinner," Natasha said, cool as ice. "It's eight o clock at night. Most people eat dinner now. Unless you're part of the set who hides in laboratories tampering with chemicals that are illegal in the state of New York until they completely lose track of the hour."

"You've been spying on me!" Tony exclaimed, mock injured.

"I'm a spy, it's what we do."

"Fine, whatever. Dinner sounds great. Can I come?"

"Absolutely not."

"Y'see? It's a date."

Considerations of blackmail and bodily harm flashed across Natasha's eyes, and Clint very gently guided her towards the door, muttering something about meeting her by the car. Natasha calmly exited the room, determined not to let Tony ruin her night, and Clint glowered at the billionaire as he reached around him for his car keys in dish on the kitchen counter.

"You would be amazed at how difficult it is to speak with an arrow through your trachea. Would you like to find out?"

Tony rolled his eyes at the threat, reaching out to grasp Clint by the wrist and peel the keys out of his fingers. Then he rummaged around in his jean's pocket and retrieved his own car keys, which he folded into Clint's hand.

"Take the Audi. Special occasion and all that."

Clint was more than surprised. Tony never let him take any of his cars, much less one of the nicest ones. Knowingly, of course. "Oh God, I could kiss you."

"Save it for Nat. Go, be free, have weird little assassin babies, I don't care."

Clint punched Tony in the shoulder amicably, then headed for the door. Tony suddenly thought of something.

"Do not have sex in my car! You have sex in my car, and I will come down on you like the wrath of God-!"

Clint closed the door behind him decisively, cutting Tony off. Back in the kitchen, the billionaire sulked, leaning heavily against the counter and sipping his coffee. He had almost forgotten about the woman in green. Until she spoke from behind him, voice silky and low.

"Very generous of you."

Tony spun around with a slight yelp, looking into the eyes of the tall, unreadable woman. He was done playing games, and now insisted in a voice that was slightly louder than necessary,

"Who are you?"

"Anthony, I'm insulted. Short of drawing you a map, I've told you everything you need to know. Use your eyes. Honestly, you think someone knows you…"

"A name, that's all I'm asking for."

The woman sighed heavily, crossing her arms and looking at him squarely. "I am Loki of Asgard, and I am burdened by your immense idiocy."

Tony honestly didn't have a reply for this. Impossible. This dame was not the sarcastic prince he was used to babysitting, she was a woman for God's sake! But gradually the technical part of Tony's brain took over and started weighing the plausibility of it. Firstly, JARVIS hadn't activated the security alarm that was programmed to go off whenever any unauthorized personnel entered the Tower. Secondly, Loki had some potent magic running through his veins and a reputation as a shapeshifter. Thirdly, and probably most importantly, for all intents and purposes this woman _was_ Loki. Same sharp green eyes, same vocal patterns and cryptic sense of humor, same hand gestures and taste in clothes. Eventually, Tony's logical brain accepted this as the only possible answer and set about forming a delicate way to point this out, but then his characteristic indelicacy  took over instead.

"But you have boobs!"

Loki did a little twirl in his female body and spoke as if explaining something to a child that was below their reading level.

"Obviously. This is my female form. I'm baffled as to how you didn't recognize me, and if you naturally assume that any attractive woman in your home is there because she spent the night entertaining one of your teammates, you need to re-examine your expectations of the fairer sex."

Tony felt like crying. Loki had enough to bitch at him about, he didn't need to add sexism to the list.

"I'm assuming this is part of your magic?"

"One of my more well-known tricks."

"So why'd you spring it on us now?"

"Natasha needed a new dress for her engagement with Clint and desired my opinion. Apparently Midgardian retail venues to not allow persons of the opposite sex in the women's dressing room, which would have completely defeated the purpose of my being there, so I assumed a more appropriate shape."

Tony leaned across the island with a deep sigh, running his fingers through his hair. "Let me get this straight…You left the Tower, essentially compromising the freedom you have here that I honestly think Fury turns a blind eye to, so you could go shopping with Nat?"

"Of course."

"Doesn't that seem a little…Trifling to you?"

"When a woman needs a dress, she needs a dress, Anthony. It's a serious issue."

Tony rubbed his face, moaning through his hands, "Just kill me now. I can't do this…."

It was about that time Thor wandered into the kitchen looking for an apple, which he promptly found and bit into. He spotted Loki.

"Hello, brother!" Thor took Loki hand and kissed it ceremonially, as he would if greeting any other woman. "Did you enjoy your venture into the outside world?"

"Indeed. I must admit it does have its charms, especially when I'm not trying to raze it to the ground."

"Quite. Did you ask the Widow to escort you to the house of shrawma as I suggested?"

"Yes! You were right, it is food fit for a god."

Tony couldn't take it anymore. If Thor couldn't see that Loki was wearing a dress, he was just going to quit the world.

"Notice anything different about Loki, Thor?"

The god of thunder looked confused.

"No. Merely his female form. Did you cut your hair, brother?"

"You're missing the point, Thor," Loki sighed, taking a bite out of his apple before handing it back. "Anthony is very confused by my current state. Please explain to him that's its perfectly acceptable in our realm."

"Oh, of course!" Thor chewed a bite of apple thoughtfully for a minute, massive arms crossed over his chest. "Well, Loki has been capable of taking this form since we were of age, and has so when necessary to his tricks or our adventures ."

"It was necessary for me to continue my studies of sorcery," Loki put in. "Believe it or not, sexism in alive and well in Asgard and there are plenty who will neither sell instruments of magic to man nor let him into the secret sections of the great libraries of Alfhiem."

"It did initially concern our parents, but it's a trait far too useful to condemn for long.."

Loki smiled wickedly, elbowing Thor. "Do you remember the time we went to that giant's wedding dressed as women, you as the goddess Freya, I as her maidservant?"

Thor let out his warm, booming laugh, clapping Loki on the back. "Indeed! One of your more mad ideas brother, I only lived it down through slaughtering all in Thrym's hall who would have lived to tell the tale."

"Oh, don't' start on about my ideas, my ideas have saved us both on more occasions than there are number to count.  You make an ugly woman, brother. I did the best I could with dresses and veils, but there's not that much to work with."

Tony watched as the two reminisced, jibing and laugh with one another. It was sweet, in a strangely Shakespearean, violent way. Very Norse. After a moment, Loki disappeared upstairs to shapeshift and change, returning a moment dressed in a forest green tunic and black jeans. He stretched out his arms and wiggled his fingers.

"That's more comfortable."

Tony noticed his short, well-kept nails were still painted a deep, sparkling green and nodded to them. "You gonna take that polish off?"

"No, of course not," Loki said, sinking into his usual spot on the couch and stretching out like a cat. "Natasha was kind enough to paint them for me; I wouldn't want to ruin her good work.”

The man of iron knew that his next question was probably inappropriate and ill-timed but didn't really care because, well, he was Tony Stark.

"Not that is really matters, I mean you're confusing and terrifying either way...But whose team do you play for?"

"I do not enjoy your Midgardian sports," Loki deadpanned.

"No, I mean which way to you swing?"

"Good gods man, you make no sense. Speak plainly!"

"Are you straight?" Tony groaned.

Loki paused, running this statement through his library of Earth pop-culture references while Thor remained utterly confused, but happy that Loki seemed happy and was speaking to him as they used to.

"Oh," The trickster said after a moment, snuggling down on the couch, half asleep. "You mean, do I prefer the romantic company of women to men?"

"If you don't mind sharing. You just seem so comfortable as a woman…"

Loki though on this for moment. "Sometimes it's easier, and the attention I get is always enjoyable. I like feeling beautiful and not having to live up to the Aesir's narrows expectations of a man, if only for a few hours. But yes, I generally prefer women. There’s no accounting for the occasional man, though."

"There is no question of preference one you have met Aesir women!” Thor boomed. “Remember Sigyn, Loki?"

"Mmm," Loki said approvingly, mind drifting into the land of ex-girlfriends. "Sigyn…She was notable."

Tony was done. It was far too early for this and Bruce was probably wondering where he was. Of course, he couldn't leave a conversation without getting in a sarcastic word edgewise.

"I've just got one last question."

"Tony," Loki groaned, for once using his proper name. "I'm tired. I spent five hours this morning running around downtown New York in high heels and keeping up a pretty heavy enchantment while I was at it. I need a nap."

"Pretty please with sugar on top?"

"Speak quickly, Stark."

"Alright." Tony cleared his throat. "If you like girls and can assume the shape of a girl, have those two things ever, I don't know, happened at the same time? Because, just from a spectating standpoint, that would be pretty ho-"

"You're a degenerate, Anthony Stark," Loki sighed tiredly, eyes already closed. He reached up and flicked his wrist in a decisive way, and Tony looked down to find wriggling orange salamanders crawling out of his coffee cup and up over his hand. He squalled, dropping the mug into the sink with a clatter. The salamanders immediately disappeared into harmless wisps of green smoke, and Thor roared with laughter.

"Salamanders?" Tony demanded, voice breaking in an embarrassing way. "Where do you come up with this stuff?"

Loki gestured to himself. "God of Mischief."

Then he cracked open an eye, taking in a completely terrified and utterly baffled Tony, and his brother, who was laughing in that stupidly infectious way that Loki, loathe to admit it as he was, loved. So he laughed too, in a completely genuine way that Tony had never heard before. It wasn't the few dark chuckles the god occasionally let slip when Natasha said something blackly funny, it was childish peals of laughter like the ringing of church bells, almost giggles. It was the first time he had really laughed since Thor's banishment, and his brother knew this, and grinned all the wider. Tony couldn't help it. He smiled too.

It was worth the salamanders.


	10. Lawyers in Love

 

 

It had been just over two months since Loki reappeared in Central Park and now New York City  was smack dab in the middle of sweltering July. Kids in Harlem were loosing fire hydrants onto their steaming streets, street vendors had covered their tiny stalls in battery-operated fans, and The Avengers were spending most of their off time on the roof. This was completely thanks to the fact that Tony's number one item on the list of things to add to Stark Tower 2.0 was what Pepper had shot down as unnecessary and overdone the first time around; a Vegas-worthy rooftop pool.

Despite his CEO's naysaying, Tony and the other Avengers had gotten their money's worth and then some out of the pool, which boasted an attached eight-person Jacuzzi, outdoor stereo system, and a floating mini-bar. It had been the site of more than one party that Fury had nearly killed the team over and a couple more that, God willing, he would never find out about. But now the expansive roof, tiled with Spanish mosaics and littered with deck furniture, was harboring just the six of them, content and relaxed in the afterglow of a successful mission.

Well, the six Avengers and Loki. Thor had damn near bodily dragged his baby brother up to the roof, insisting that he "socialize and enjoy this glorious Midgardian sunlight." Loki had whined in a way that was surprisingly typical of a younger sibling, insisting that he was perfectly content in his room and was on the brink of reconciling Aesir myth with Midgardian science or somesuch, but Thor wasn't having it. So now Loki sat on the edge of the pool in shirtsleeves and jeans rolled up to his calves, feet swirling about in the water below. The water around his ankles glowed a slight green as he induced a magical current in the water at his brother's request, watching with some amusement as Thor and Steve raced each other against the tide to the far side of the pool and back. Bruce and Clint had abandoned the pool when the superhumans decided to compete and now stood dripping and laughing next to Tony, who was minding the hotdogs sizzling on a large barbeque while verbally sparring with his lawyer on the other end of the phone. Natasha reclined in a nearby lounge chair, tanning her perfect physique as she sipped a Long Island Iced Tea and perused the latest copy of Guns and Ammo.

It was familiar and content, something dangerously close to family. Loki hadn't wanted to, and he seriously doubted The Avengers were too keen on the idea either, but somehow he had found common ground with all of them and had been accepted into the fold. Any layers of distrust or bitterness left between them were thin enough to see through, and Loki was even on speaking terms with Thor again. The wounds he had caused them and the betrayal and humiliation he felt at their hands was still there, but here, in the secluded idyll of Avengers Tower, it didn't matter so much anymore. And as sweet as that was, Loki was not an optimist, he was a realist. And he sensed that cruel reality would find them all sooner than they expected, he just didn't know when or how.

Thor made a lap around the edge of the pool closest to Natasha and made sure to splash her robustly as he did so. The assassin threw aside the dripping remains of her magazine and lunged into the pool with the grace of an Olympian driver. She landed on Thor's shoulders, knees around his thick neck, and dragged him squalling and choking into the depths. The demigod resurfaced a moment later with his arms locked around Natasha's middle, and threw her a few feet up in the air before she came crashing back down into the water.

Clint took a moment out of his committed relationship with his hot dog to roar his approval at Natasha's actions. It had been quietly accepted around the Tower that yes, the assassins were sort-of-kind-of seeing each other, no, it didn't disrupt the team dynamic regardless of what Steve not-so-subtly hinted at, and yes, any Avenger to tell Fury about it wouldn't live to gloat. And to be honest, nothing really changed. Nat and Clint were still close in their reserved way, they still sparred with enough ferocity that were it not for the laughing, you would have thought they were really trying to kill each other, and they still got tired of each other occasionally and amicably avoided each other for days at a time. There was just more kissing.

Loki was too busy admiring the look of concern on Steve's face as Nat and Thor nearly drowned each other to notice Clint sitting down beside him on the edge of the pool.

"Hiya Green Eyes." Clint said, finishing off his hot dog and tossing an unopened bottle of ginger ale into Loki's lap. He had taken to calling the god Green Eyes simply because "Loki" was just too weird. The trickster had once been "Sir" to him, which had quickly changed to "No Good Rat Bastard Son of a Sorceress Bitch". That first one was so unacceptable under a sober mind it was comical, and Clint had long ago decided that the second one was too insulting to Loki's mother, a thoroughly lovely woman. But  _Loki_? That was…Friendly. And true, the god had become a strangely welcome presence in his life of late, but he still couldn't accept the warm fuzzies Natasha and the others had suddenly developed towards him. So, Green Eyes it was. Warm and playful, but still distant.

Loki grinned at the ginger ale. "My favorite. Trying to get on my good side, archer?"

"Consider it a thank-you. For the business with Nat."

"Oh, so you knew?" The god sounded skeptical.

"You mean about the whole making me jealous ploy? Obviously. I'm not sure if that was just mischief or some kind of creepy way to win my favor, but it is appreciated."

Loki drew his feet out of the water, killing the magical current he had created and taking a swig off the bottle of ginger ale. Since the bottle had spent all morning in a bucket of ice, it quickly turned the inside of his lips and the pads of his fingers cerulean. The god smiled contentedly, a flush of blue kissing the pink on his cheeks. Clint watched him for a moment, dunking his own feet in the pool before muttering,

"I have to ask, you know."

"Ask what?" Loki asked, hooking a dark strand of hair behind his ear.

"Why me."

Loki furrowed his brow a little. The day had been going so well. Had.

"Clint, that was a long time ago, I wasn't necessarily myse-"

"I don't want to hear it. That building was full of agents better suited to your interests than I was; stronger men, smarter men. You had me outmaneuvered; killing me would have been simpler. I spent more time than I like to admit in your "employ", and I didn't exactly apply for the job. You can at least tell me why you chose me." Loki opened his mouth, but Clint held up a curt hand, not quite finished. "And I swear, if you say "You have heart" I will personally kick your ass into next Tuesday."

Loki chuckled, the tip of his tongue going blue as well. "Would you prefer a lie?"

"I just need to know."

"I didn't want just any hired gun, Barton, I needed devotion. Passion. A sharp mind and strong spirit, someone I could consult and trust. I needed…A confidant."

Clint furrowed his brow, as though he couldn't believe this.

"Careful, you're making it sound as if you actually liked me."

"But I do! That's the point. I was alone in this universe, completely focused on my goal, yes, but still a stranger in a strange land. My family had disowned me, I had abandoned all pretense I had to any true friends, and I was positive I would go mad without specialist I could also talk to."

  
Something squeamish ran through Clint's stomach.  _Specialist._  That was what Loki had called him, when he looked upon him with favor and gently suggested missions Clint could take to please his superior, tasks the SHIELD agent had been more than happy to carry out. In the here and now, Clint shook his head, looking distantly out over the shifting waters of Tony's pool.

"Still trying to manipulate me after all this time?"

Loki shrugged, finishing his soda.

"You will believe what you will believe. But be satisfied in this rare admittance of my weakness; I was without a friend and disoriented. I knew you to be loved by your comrades and I saw a heart that would be open and devoted to me. So I took you."

“You turned me into a mind slave because you didn't have any friends? Facebook takes less effort, you know."

Loki chuckled. That was half the reason he liked Clint; he really did have a delicious sense of humor underneath all that SHIELD professionalism. "Under better circumstances I always thought we would get along splendidly of our own accord."

"Well, that whole free will bridge burned a long time ago."

"Yours, maybe. Mine didn't."

Clint paused. Was this an offer of friendship? Or just another trick? He wasn't sure he was completely keen on either. He never got to make a decision however, because Thor, who had climbed out of the water a few minutes ago to twel off, suddenly appeared behind Loki and dumped his brother with no warning whatsoever into the pool.

Clint sprang to his feet as Loki disappeared beneath the water with a crash. The archer shot daggers at Thor with his eyes.

"Are you insane?"

Natasha, who was still in the water, made no move to help Loki. "If he dies, we're not liable for that, are we?"

The god of thunder boomed with laughter, waving their concerns away. "I jest only! My brother loves the water! He once spent three days in the form of a salmon to avoid the punishments of my father for one of his more worrisome tricks."

"And it didn't occur to you that purposefully provoking one of the most powerful beings in the cosmos after all his destructive tendencies have been apparently dormant for months might not be the best idea?"

Thor still seemed unconcerned, but his smile wavered a little. "Loki knows I meant it in play. Don't you brother…?"

This question hung heavy in the air for a moment as Loki re-surfaced, treading water and glaring at his brother with an unnatural spark in his green eyes. Then he wriggled out of his soaked shirt and hurled it at Thor. It hit the thunder god's face with a wet slap, and Loki disappeared underwater with the agility of a world-class swimmer, apparently not ready to forgive his brother yet. A concerning green glow was gathering just under the surface of the water.

Thor pulled the sopping cotton off his head with a sputter and a weak laugh.

"Very funny, brother. You may come out now…"

Without any warning whatsoever, the water became terrifyingly animated, rising out of the pool like a miniature tidal wave. It attacked Thor, wrapping around his body and dragging him down squalling to the depths. For a moment, the rooftop was completely silent, horrified looks scrawled on all the Avenger's faces, a deceptive calm settling over the surface of the water…Then Loki burst to the surface with a gasping, childish laugh, clinging to the tiled fountain in the middle of the pool so he wouldn't drown in his glee. A moment later, the glow holding Thor submerged subsided, and the older brother resurfaced with a growl that soon dissolved into laughter of its own as he grabbed a protesting Loki and tugging him underwater.

Everyone (excepting Tony, who was still threatening his lawyer with financial ruination), stared openly as the two Asgardians splashed each other and cussed in Aesir, five years old again. If one five year old had the strength of a bull elephant and the other was turning water to sand and droplets to icicles in his brother's hands, just to make things more difficult.

"My God," Steve breathed, relieved he didn't have to bury anyone or imprison Loki again. "It's play to them!"

"Sure," Bruce noted, munching on his second hot dog with a towel draped around his neck. "Just like Nat and Clint, only decisively less erotic and with more likelihood of property damage."

Natasha climbed smoothly out of the pool, grabbing Bruce's towel on her way past and swatting him in the ass with it. She grinned menacingly, wrapping the terrycloth scrap around her torso and pecking Bruce on the cheek as she stole his beer.

"Watch your mouth, rage monster."

The four of them watched amicably as Loki somehow ended up on Thor's shoulders, swatting at his head and laughing so hard he couldn't breathe, and the god of thunder flipped his little brother in the water for the umpteenth time. Moments later, Tony wandered over, hands stuffed sullenly in the pockets of his Bermuda shorts, the cell phone laying discarded and abandoned on the barbeque.

"Lost another lawyer?" Bruce asked casually, yanking on a dry T-shirt.

Tony glowered behind his designer shades. "Only because every paralegal in New York can't seem to do their damn job and defend me right."

"Did you get sued by the state again?" Clint asked curiously, arms wrapped around Natasha's middle. "What does that make this, the fourth time?"

"Third, thanks," Tony shot back. "And they only sue me because they can't sue any of you!"

In some respect it was true. The Avengers were national heroes, sure, but that didn't mean that they could escape every count of public defamation or bodily trauma the courts decided to throw at them. SHIELD only covered so much, and in cases such as last week, when the Iron Man suit had taken out half a shopping mall where blessedly, no one had been killed, Fury was more than happy to throw his agents to the wolves. Which equated Tony being thrown into court again and again, since Clint and Natasha technically didn't exist, Bruce had long ago been pardoned from the actions of his alter ego, Thor didn't understand the courts well enough for it to truly be a fair trial, and no one was going to sue Captain America, who was so gosh-darned clean cut and apologetic it made you want to back an apple pie and sing the national anthem. Suing Tony Stark had been something of a much-beloved hobby for the American Supreme Court, but since his induction into the Avengers, it became a full-time occupation.

"When's the trial date, Tony?" Natasha asked.

"Two weeks from Friday."

"Two weeks? And you just canned your layer? You're not firing on all pistons. No one, especially not you with your horrific legal track record, can find a lawyer and build a counterargument that fast. The judge is going to eat you alive."

"Thanks for the encouragement, Nat," The billionaire muttered sarcastically, then nodded at Loki and Thor, still sparring in the water. "Those two trying to kill each other or something? Should we break it up, or…?"

"They're fine," Steve sighed. "I sure don't understand it, but they're just fine."

"Hello Anthony," Loki crowed, holding Thor at bay temporarily with a wall of water suspended in place with one upturned hand. "Experiencing marital strife with the lovely Miss Potts?"

Tony had never bothered to correct Loki on the fact that he and Pepper weren't' actually married, simply because he was terrified Loki would pull his matchmaker bit again and Pepper would warm to the idea of lifelong commitment right away.

"No, it's my goddamned lawyer.  _Was_  my lawyer. I need a new one…"

"What is a lawyer?" Loki queried, eager to learn.

Tony scoffed. "Supposedly they're trained professionals there to help defend you eloquently in legal disputes. They know the law, and try to prove that someone is or isn't guilty of a crime. But really they're just actors, experts at manipulating data and playing on people's assumptions and sympathies…" Suddenly his voice trailed off and his eyes were lit with a wonderful idea, the kind of wonderful idea that rational people would have called awful. "Hey….Loki, you like reading, right? You're good with public speaking?"

"Well I suppose, yes."

"God knows you're a great liar…" Tony grinned manically, speaking half to himself. "What a publicity stunt…The papers would eat it up….Take that, Vanity Fair…He'd probably be the best representation I've ever had too. With the right training…Lord, he'd be unstoppable."

"Anthony…" Loki asked, a little wary of the scheming spark in Tony's eyes. "What are you thinking?"

The billionaire smiled sweetly. "Wanna be my lawyer, Laufeyson?"

"Tony, I have no idea what the job entails."

"You read a whole bunch of books, then get to show off how smart you are by reiterating them back to a huge courtroom full of cameras in a sharply tailored suit while lying through your teeth."

"Ye gods, that sounds fantastic."

"Think it over, yeah?"

Loki never got to answer, because Thor broke through his wall of water and tackled his brother bodily. The two of them the fought and sputtered some more, then began to calm down. They exchanged a few more insults and splashed, Loki hauled himself up the ladder and retrieved a towel, grinning and panting.

"That's what you get," He said smugly, rubbing his arms and chest briskly, as if trying to create friction. Thor hopped onto the edge of the pool, dripping and beaming like a fool, and stuck his tongue out at his brother. With a wave of his hand, Loki turned it vermillion, a color it would stay for the rest of the day. Thor didn't seem to notice, most because he was too busy marveling at the change in Loki's own pale complexion. Patches of blue were blossoming and spreading across the skin.

Loki noticed as well, grimacing at the cobalt tendrils and rubbing at them furiously with the towel until the heat chased them away, only to find that new patches had popped up while he was otherwise diverted. Finally, embarrassed and frustrated, Loki draped the towel over his shoulders and sank onto a nearby deck chair, dissolving into sullen silence. For some childish, self-conscious reason, he prayed the others wouldn't notice, or would at least have enough tact not to bring it up, but he should have known better considering Tony was on the roof.

"Hey," Tony piped up, his; bright, clipped Californian accent grating on Loki’s nerves. "You're blue."

Loki's green eyes burned, and he tried to adjust his towel so it wasn't obvious, but he could feel cold tendrils wrapping around his fingers and creeping up his neck, so he knew the attempt was futile.

"You're a deductive genius, Anthony Stark. Somebody should give you a medal."

Clint and Natasha were looking (how could you not, the man was _blue_ ) but retained enough tact not to stare or pass comment. The scientist in Bruce, however, was completely enraptured and couldn't help a quiet, scholarly query.

"Is this what Jotuns look like?"

Loki ran delicate fingers over the cerulean hue of his forearms and palms, trying not to meet anyone’s eyes. "Just a little taller and more fearsome. I'm afraid I'm a sorry excuse for a proper specimen of the race, Doctor Banner. You would be better suited asking the creature who sired me, the Jotun king Laufey…Oh for Freya's sake, I'm not going to burst into tears, Natasha, you can look. It's unnerving, I know."

Natasha said nothing, merely left Clint's side and sat down in the chair nearest Loki, sliding his towel off and running analytical fingers over the raised runes on shoulder and chest. She showed no emotion except faint curiosity, and Loki resisted the urge to pull away as she examined him. It did feel nice, her light touch on a body that hadn't been held enough as a child, but the parts of him that captured her attention were still foreign and despised, so it was a surprise to him when she casually announced,

"These are magnificent. I'd get tattoos of some of these, they're that beautiful."

"They're some sort of Jotun language. I never bothered to learn it in my studies, it seemed somehow below me then…"

He looked up and realized Thor was standing over him, marveling openly. Loki's mouth went tight. When he spoke his voice was bitter and sarcastic.

"Look upon me, brother. This is what I am. He shrugged off Natasha's hand. The attention was making him feel claustrophobic. "That's why I was staying out of the water."

Thor's face contorted into guilt. "Loki, I am sorry…"

The god of mischief stood suddenly, snatching up Steve's shirt, and pulling it over his head, since his was still a wet mess on the pool tile. The T-shirt had been sitting in the sun for the past hour and felt good against his cold skin, and Loki knew that soon the delicate fairness of his Aesir form would return to his complexion.

"Why do you hate it so much?" Bruce wondered gently. "It really is unique, and as Natasha said, quite beautiful in its way. In that form, you should be able to retain some genetic mastery of ice and snow, judging by what you've told me of the Jotuns. Why hide it?"

Loki gave a small smile, painted on and cracking at the edges. "Because I am a monster, Doctor Banner, the stuff of children's nightmares."

Something went soft in the Doctor's eyes. "Aren't we all."

JARVIS's automated tones cut through the deck speakers, addressing the group.

_Director Fury on line one, all and sundry. He requests your presence immediately._

Loki, whose taste for mischief couldn't be quelled by a few uncomfortable conversations, smirked at the unseen A.I. unit.

"Patch him through, JARVIS. We're ready to accept company."

Nearly every Avengers shouted protests, which were miraculously transformed into silent smiles as Nick Fury's face appeared on the TV screen above the bar. He took in the pool and the barbeque, everyone half dressed and soaking wet, and Fury's one eye narrowed into a harrowing slit that reminded Thor far too much of his father.

"Well Hell. Ya'll decided to have a pool party and nobody invited me. I am hurt, boys and girls. As I recall you all were spending the day in the South American jungle trying to catch the ringleader of the Del Torre cartel, and weren't to be disturbed because it may “jeopardize your sensitive operation”."

"For all you know, stink eye, we could be," Tony smart-mouthed. "Maybe we're undercover at the kingpin’s South American pool of vice and sin, and you've just blown our cover by making the contact I expressly told you not to attempt."

Fury was too tired for Tony, a mood he often found himself in. "You're a bad liar, Stark, and your A.I. doesn't keep secrets well. If you wanted a day off to roast weenies, you coulda just asked."

"Then you would have called in with a mission," Bruce muttered out of the corner of his mouth, looking down at his bare feet.

"Damn right I would have, just like I am now. Only this isn't a mission, this is an emergency. Let me talk to Loki."

Thor unceremoniously poked his brother between the shoulder blades, this simple action propelling the younger god forward a few feet and into Fury's line of sight.

"Nicolas," Loki said sweetly, still a little giddy from his romp in the pool. Fury wasn't having it.

"Oh, so you're the funny man now? Fantastic. Maybe you can slay the armies threatening to attack Earth with laughter."

Loki was suddenly stone-cold sober. "I know naught of this."

"Strange, I'd think you'd be the first to notice. SHIELD headquarters has been being bombarded by the last three day by serious electro-magnetic interference, radio static of a distinctly alien origin. Somebody's trying to make contact, and judging by the images coming in from our military satellites, it's probably the battalion of ships hovering just outside our atmosphere. Listen to this and tell me what you hear, Mr. Laufeyson."

Fury pulled up a sound byte on a display just off-screen, routing it through to Tony's poolside speakers. Suddenly the roof was shaken by a screeching wail that was organic as well as mechanical, all whispering and chattering layered over the thundering bass of white noise and roaring engines. It was a primal noise, something that inherently sent a chill down the Avenger's collective spine. Loki raised a shaking hand to his mouth, his eyes drowning in nightmares and repressed horrors. Finally he managed to force out one word.

"Chitauri."

Fury shut off the clip. "You’re damn right Chitauri. You gave your word that they wouldn't follow you this far."

"I said no such thing! I merely claimed it would take an inconceivable amount of time and effort to…Surely you don't blame me for this! I have no control over their actions, Director, I cannot be held responsible-"

Loki was working himself into something dangerously close to panic, and Bruce settled a gentle hand on his shoulder and muttered something too soft for the others to hear. This seemed to steady the god, and he took a deep breath and turned his back to the monitor with a huff.

"Do you have any idea what the Chiaturi are trying to tell us?" Steve asked. Fury nodded solemnly.

"Threats mostly, all on a related theme. The one we get most is a, somewhat overdramatic but I think you'll agree compelling, "Give up the witch so we may burn him, else watch your world succumb to our flames." Where do aliens get Puritanical metaphors, anyway? I can't keep it straight…" He looked at Loki, who suddenly seemed very small. "You're a wanted god, Mr. Laufeyson, and, unintentional as I'm sure it was, you've led the wolves to our door. I won't put this world in jeopardy again over one man, no matter how fond my team's grown of you."

Loki finally managed to meet Fury’s gaze, and there were tears in his eyes. He wished he could say it was an act, a play for pity, but in that moment he was undone, a child clinging to what little hope was left in him.

"Please do not let them take me."

No one, not even Fury, had anything to say to that. Loki was a proud man. He did not beg. He did not cry. He did not tremble in anguish at the thought of being cast out yet  _again_ , tortured for the _thousandth_ time…And yet he did now.

Fury sighed, wishing suddenly that it was someone else's decision to make. "I'm not surrendering you yet, but the situation's not looking fantastic. That's why I called. We need to talk face to face."

"Well come on down," Tony smirked. "The water's fine."

Fury's face showed no emotion. "That's not what I had in mind."

At that moment, he terminated the call and a military-grade black helicopter burst forth in the sky overhead, sending shuddering soundwaves and ripping winds into the rooftop area. Natasha shielded her eyes from the glare of the sun, flagging down the helicopter and helping it land safely on the helipad fifty feet away from where the others were standing. Everyone else began to somberly get dressed, grabbing weapons, cell phones, and margaritas for the road.

Behind Loki, Thor squeezed his brother's shoulder, speaking in low, comforting tones. He had don’t this often before when they were children and his Odin had somehow decided to shout at Loki for a joint misdemeanor and spare Thor.

"You've won the sympathies of the team, brother. And the Avengers don't go down without a gods-awful fight."

Loki somehow managed a smile, dry and small but existent all the same, as he strode towards the helicopter. "I know. I've got the bruises to prove it."

 


	11. 99 Red Balloons

Despite the protestations of some of his teammates, Bruce had seen no need to insist on Loki being restrained to appear before Fury, claiming that presenting him as a liability would only hurt their cause and misrepresent Loki’s and usefulness in relation to the Avengers Initiative. If any plea was to be made on Loki's behalf, it was imperative that Fury first saw him as nonthreatening and, as much as the word twisted the trickster's face into a hateful scowl, reformed.

And so the Avengers dismounted the helicopter onto  the Helicarrier, currently floating just off the Manhattan coastline, and strolled with their usual amount of confidence onto the main deck with Loki in tow. The god was enjoying taking time to marvel at the staggering technology and magnificent engineering without having the barrel of a gun shoved between his shoulder blades, and delighting in the looks of shock, terror, and awe on every SHIELD agent's face that he passed. One corporal spilled coffee on his jumpsuit, another staggered lightheaded into a nearby filing cabinet. Countless others reached for their guns before being stayed by the steel in Steve's eyes. It was quite satisfying.

Director Fury awaited them from his usual imposing stance atop the control dais in the middle of his headquarters. All around him, agents bustled about making heated phone calls and fighting to decode incoming stream of Chitauri code, which was thrown up on monitors along with Loki's case file and any information on the ongoing negotiations with Odin. Fury's single eyebrow arched at the sight of his team, most of who were still damp from the pool, none of which were suited up, and his lips tightened in displeasure.

"Didn't have time to yank on any leather, I see."

Tony retrained himself from a passing remark that included the world "kinky", and instead made a rare, serious statement.

"Didn't seem necessary, considering none of us are expecting to come in close contact with any psychic-sadistic aliens today. Course, things change."

The true meaning was clear.  _We're not surrendering Loki. Give me a reason to suit up, and it won't be to play hostage negotiator with Thanos._

Maria Hill, who had been standing at the Director's side like the good second mate she was, now spoke in her urgent, low tones, as if Loki wasn't there.

"Sir, shouldn't he be restrained? Or at least muzzled? Everyone on this ship is in danger."

"Yes, Doctor," Fury noted. "Are those high-tech bracelets you manufactured on the fritz or something?"

"We're in no danger," Bruce offered, ready and rehearsed to own up to his actions. "Truth be told, he's has been unrestrained since his sixth day in Avengers Tower."

Hill was appalled. "What?"

"He saved Agent Romanoff's life! Also, Loki's magic is a part of his biological system; I had reason to believe that repressing it was making him ill."

Loki sensed the lie in this statement and cocked an appreciative eyebrow. The doctor was undertaking undue responsibility for his sake…That was new. He would have to repay this kindness somehow.

Agent Hill, meanwhile, had to stop herself from screaming at Banner for his carelessness. She refused to put everyone under her command in the line of fire just because one man decided there was no harm in it.

"I don't care what he did or how sick he is; that abomination killed sixteen of my men and nearly brought this ship down because he felt like it. He's dangerous and psychotic and I want him restrained."

"Keep a civil tongue in your head, Agent Hill." Fury snapped. The Director turned to Banner, disappointment and anger in his eye. "Due to the fact that there have apparently been no adverse incidents since you released Loki from his bonds, I will not insist on it now. But for future reference, Doctor Banner, you do not give a megalomaniacal pagan god free reign because he's been all rainbows and  _My Little Pony_ since he attacked us last, and you sure as Hell don't do it without consulting me first. Are we clear?"

Bruce nodded enthusiastically, slinking back to join the group. "Yessir."

Agent Hill was unsatisfied, and muttered something black and bitter to Fury, who tried to soothe her in hushed tones. Tony, meanwhile, had had enough.

"I'm sorry Miss Hill, I didn't quite catch that; I think it was muffled by Daddy Fury's coattails."

"We are in the middle of a planet-wide crisis, Stark,” Maria snarled, taking a step forward. “And you can be damn sure I'm going to take every precaution to preserve my men and my species! So unless you think you could do a better job-"

"Better, faster, and more energy efficient."

Steve stepped between then, ready to pin people down if a fight were to break out. "Now stop it! A man's life and the fate of our world hangs in the balance, and you're being children!"

Loki, who probably had more people skills than all of the Avengers combined when he chose to exercise them, picked up on the mounting tension in the air and stepped forward of his own accord. He placed a foot up on the stair leading to Fury and crossed his right arm and fist over his chest as he had learned in the hall of his father.

"Director Fury, I am at your utter disposal and apologize profusely for the intergalactic tension my presence on your planet has caused. Like you, I am eager to see this situation remedied as quickly and cleanly as possible. I appreciate your gracious indulgence considering my past actions against your species and submit myself humbly to your declarations, regardless of my own wishes. Your judgment is wise and to be trusted."

Every word was perfectly chosen to instill the right idea, a hand-cut diamond fitted into the larger work of the brief statement, and the way the careful cadence of Loki’s delivery made the jewels gleam had even Natasha nodding appreciatively. Loki gazed up at Fury with an open submission in his eyes that had once allowed him to get away with things far more creative than murder in Asgard. The Director's mouth merely twitched into something that was almost a smile, and he shook his head slightly.

"You are an impressive specimen, Mr. Laufeyson, and I wish I had ten of you on my information retrieval team, but it doesn't mean I believe a damn word that comes out of your mouth." Loki's face fell a little. The slight wrinkling of hurt on his brow and had sent Frigga into tears and cooled the Allfather's wrath on more than one occasion. Fury sighed.

"Still…The sentiment is appreciated. At ease."

The statement seemed to apply to everyone there, and as Loki withdrew with a small nod, so did Tony and even agent Hill. The trickster acknowledged Steve and swept a hand broadly towards the open floor, allowing Steve to step forward and speak for the group, as per usual. True, he occupied the somewhat cliché role of "leader", but truth be told, he had mostly assumed the position because Clint's words were sparse, Natasha’s sparser, Banner got squeamish about making executive decisions, and God forbid anyone let Tony get a word in edgewise. Steve was usually polite and levelheaded, not to mention selfless. He took in the staring SHIELD agents and the scowling Hill and offered,

"Sir, maybe it would be better if we moved this conversation to a more private setting?"

Fury nodded, already making his way down the stairs.

"My thoughts exactly. This way gentleman."

It was impossible to say if the Director planned it, but the quieter accommodations the Avengers were led to turned out to be the exact same conference room where they had received news of Coulson's death, and there was a certain heaviness in the air, a grave formality. Tony, Bruce, and Steve sat in one clump while Loki lounged in a further seat, deceptively clam and allowed his brother to sit protectively at his side. Natasha stood erect, arms crossed, and Clint found a cozy spot in the rafters from which to watch the proceedings. There was a well-circulated office joke that he sometimes dragged pillows and blankets up there to make a veritable nest, and he wasn't about to let on that he  _had_  done that once after Natasha had kicked him out of her room and penny locked him out of his own, just to be spiteful. Lover's quarrels were always more calculated when both parties were international spies.

Below him, Fury was talking.

"The threats have been getting more and more insistent; we can't pacify them anymore. Communications with Asgard have completely fallen through, and now Thanos is demanding our answer by sunrise tomorrow. We don't have a choice anymore."

"You want us to give Loki back to the Chitauri," Steve said, point blank.

"In a word? Yes."

"You cannot!" Thor burst forth, a torrent of raw emotion. Loki hissed something in Aesir at him and the god of thunder fell silent for the moment, apparently abashed.

"I can and I will,” Fury sighed. “I'm sorry, Thor. I know you love your brother, and he's been the perfect guest, but the Chitauri aren't playing anymore. There's nothing I can do"

"Loose us on their monsters and footsoilders, I shall slay them all! Let them attempt their petty invasion again! They could not succeed with the aid of a sorcerer, they will gloriously die at his hand united with ours!"

Fury looked at Thor with a face devoid of emotion, one used to making impossible decisions then going home and living with it, being able to sleep on it. "If we keep Loki, The Chitauri will launch alien weapons of a distinctly hydrogen-based nature at key points on this planet, utterly devastating the human species. They have the tech to back it up, my people checked. I have no alternate plan and no practical incentive to keep your brother in my care; maybe if I had both we could talk-"

"Practical incentive," Tony piped up. "Done."

"What?" Fury drawled.

Tony stood, palms spread out on the tabletop.

"Practical incentive. In business terms, a quantifiable way to prove that a product is viable and worth putting adequate time and resources into. Loki has plenty. For one, he saved Natasha's life when she was past medical help. His magic is as flexible as it is powerful; the same green energy that called Nat back from the great beyond has been successfully integrated with Stark tech to power my entire research and development department. He can shapeshift and conjure illusions, very practical in a firefight, and sense a lie no matter how well-hidden, perfect for interrogations. He will be acting as my lawyer in a Supreme Court Case two weeks from now-"

"Anthony, I never-"

Tony shut Loki up by barging on with his diatribe. "And he successfully hooked up Nat and Clint, which is a miracle if I ever saw one."

"You're dead, Stark," Clint snarled from the rafters. Natasha's eyes held the same message, but Fury's livid gaze killed the words before they could escape her throat.

"He's smart, he's got a tongue that could cut glass, he makes a mean mojito and gives Natasha another girl to talk to,” Tony pressed on. The man is an untapped wealth of power and maybe, the bridge between Asgard and Earth relations-wise. And, loathe as I am to admit it, we all sorta kinda like the guy. We can use him, Fury."

The Director scowled, arms crossed. "What are you getting at, Tony?"

"Practical incentive. You know what I’m asking."

Fury laughed. "What, you want me to make Loki an Avenger?"

Steve and Thor laughed weakly at this ludicrous suggestion, but there was no mirth in Tony's dark eyes.

"Yes."

It was noted by a few SHIELD agents on the ground floor who happened to be looking, that at that very moment, the windows around the conference room flashed with green light, rattled with sudden voices being raised, and echoed with the dull thump of a silenced gunshot. A few seconds later inside the conference room, Thor was retraining a glowing Loki from crawling across the table to throttle Stark, Natasha and Bruce were shouting their displeasure, Steve had his hands over his ears, and Clint was stringing his bow and deciding who needed to be shot first. Fury, surprisingly, merely drew his gun and with one fluid motion, brought it over his head and loosed two shots into the ceiling.

Everyone froze, the room suddenly falling silent. Loki's eyes eventually stopped blazing green and he shrugged Thor off, sinking back down into his seat.

"I'm not  _that_  fond of the lot of you." He spit.

"How hard did you hit your head when you fell back to earth, Tony?" Steve demanded. "I mean, yeah he's great and all, but…He's Loki!"

"The dynamics of this team hang in a delicate balance," Natasha noted calmly. "We have no idea how Loki's addition would affect them. Also, he hasn't been trained. Also…He's Loki."

Thor didn't care about team dynamics or practical incentives. He just wanted things to stay like they were, with Loki at his side.

 "Would it save my brother, Director?"

"I have a policy against giving up my own men. But even if I were to consider so insane and unlikely an avenue, we still don't have a plan for getting out of this current predicament. And that doesn't mean yes, Tony, so stop beaming. It would take a majority vote and my personal approval."

Stark swallowed his wolfish grin, continuing into the strategic process because when you're hot, you're hot, and Tony was on a roll.

"Also doable. Let's brainstorm. Item one, we pull a Thor; draw 'em out and smash 'em with a really big hammer."

"Superior numbers and the presence of nuclear weapons makes that route impossible," Fury said.

"Fine. We go to them, sneak attack?"

"They're in space, Tony."

"Okay, okay, it was a long shot…"

"We could insist Odin allow Loki to return home, if only briefly," Steve tried. "Asgard is between dimensions, where the Chitauri can't follow."

"I'd be willing to try it at this point, but getting a clear line to Asgard involves bouncing radio signals off sacred mirrors and into a reflective pool on the other side.There's been radio interference because of the Chitauri presence and we haven't been able to get a clear signal to Asgard for two days. There's no way to request a team to come pick Loki up. We're operating blind here, without backup."

So what I'm hearing you tell me," Tony murmured, the first tendrils of a plan beginning to wrap around his capable brain. "Is that no matter how we play this, Loki has to end up on that ship?"

Fury sighed heavily, sinking down into a chair. "Now you see my dilemma."

Tony grinned manically, crossing to Loki and putting hand on his shoulder.

"Do that clone thing you do."

"My what?" Loki asked.

"When you project an image of yourself; do it now."

"Oh!" The god said, suddenly understanding. He tossed a hand out and uncurled his fingers, sending a perfect replica of himself fizzling to life on top of the table, strange mists swirling about its ankles like bad reception at the edges of a television picture. It was remarkably convincing, accurate down to the stitching on his clothes.

"It's called a shade," Loki narrated s Fury examined the strange creature looking back at him with inquisitive eyes. "A very basic illusion. They can take any form you wish and perform basic tasks. They have enough intelligence to mimic what they see and remember their orders, no more."

"It's an A.I. unit," Tony breathed, leaning against the table and looking up at the hologram. "Rudimentary, yes, but so was JARVIS in the beginning." Tony reached out a hand to brush against the synthetic Loki's fingertips, and wasn't surprised when they pushed straight through without the slightest sensation.

"Would there be any way to solidify this, actually create a biological organism?"

Loki took a deep breath, dark eyebrows shooting up. "Um…" He drawled, the request drawing out Earth slang from his cultured lips. "That's a tall order…Yes, it's plausible, just exceptionally difficult, and requires some magic that straddles the line of social unacceptability."

"And you said they could be programmed to respond to basic commands," The billionaire continued, his famous wheels turning faster than the eye could see. "But we could, hypothetically, upgrade the software right? Bruce has streamed code to magic before, if we imbedded some basic memories and a shadow function…"

Banner suddenly caught on to what Tony had been dancing around, and his mouth fell open.

"Tony, we can't."

"Why not?"

Bruce actually got a little heated, some green showing around his temples. "What you're suggesting is creating a human artificial intelligence unit! Even if the science were possible, the moral and ethical ramifications are staggering! You would essentially be creating a new Loki, one that could feel and hurt and  _remember_ , for those animals to rip apart! There has to be a way that doesn't involve playing Doctor Frankenstein-"

"I'm not talking about reanimating the dead, Bruce, we would be saving a man's life."

"And damming another!"

"It would only have to know as much as you want it to-!" Tony caught himself before he got carried away, not wanting to provoke Bruce. He had so far been the only member of the team not to draw out the Hulk for any reason, and Tony didn't want to ruin his good record. "It's the only way, Bruce. I wouldn't ask something like this of you if I saw a better avenue."

Bruce sighed heavily, as though the weight of the world rested on his shoulders, and turned to his superior.

"Fury, don't make me do this."

Director Fury gazed levelly at his team, eye floating from the spider and hawk exchanging concerned looks to the sparring scientists to the two strongmen who looked unsettlingly like children to the strange, alien creature who had nearly destroyed everything Fury had sought to build . Even though he wished he could steel himself and expel Loki from his planet like poison from a wound, the part of him that made him such a fine leader refused to until there was without a shadow of a doubt, no other way.

Without warning, Fury turned suddenly, greatcoat flapping behind him as he strode back out into the main floor of the helicarrier.

"You have until sunrise. See what you can do."


	12. Thanks for the Memories

Loki sat quietly on a stainless steel operating table in the extensive Hellicarrier laboratory, feeling uncomfortably like the child caught in a custody battle as Bruce attached medical nodes to his temples while berating Tony. Bruce wasn't shouting anymore, but the tint of olive creeping around the tips of his ears wasn't likely to be going away anytime soon.

"This is the most insane idea you've ever had and I'm not okay with it. It's dangerous, irresponsible,  and inhumane. Not to mention stupid. Even if we get that shade right down to the accent and mannerisms, The Chitauri still might not believe that it's really Loki."

Tony was going to town on SHIELD's impressive computer mainframe, already crafting an appropriate shadow function and "accidentally" deleting any security checks or firewalls that impeded his progress.

"I feel obligated to point out that the tense you're speaking in insinuates that you've already agreed to go along with it, so you might as well stop bitching and enjoy the ride, Brucey-boy."

The green tinge crept a little further down Banner's neck. "I'm not playing around, Tony! Have you even considered how this is going to affect _our_  Loki? The strain of maintaining such a heavy enchantment could kill him!"

"Once my codex is integrated into the shade's system, it'll be self-sustaining. In theory."

"Everything here is theoretical, Tony! The science, the magic, the Chitauri's response…There are too many varaibles!"

"Do you have a better idea, Doctor Banner?" Tony snapped, his calm cracking a little. "If so, I wait with bated breath for your revelation."

Bruce opened his mouth to rise to Tony's provocation, but unexpectedly, Loki grabbed him by the hand, pulling him back to his work.

"Stop this foolishness, both of you," The god muttered. "Anthony, you're a madman, but you have a point. There is no other choice. I cooperate of my own free will, so I suggest you reconcile yourself with the thought of it, Doctor Banner." His voice softened a little. He was tired. "Just…Stop fighting."

Both scientists sighed, and even Tony admitted to himself that this wasn't the time for his barbed words. So he returned to his computing and Bruce finished hooking Loki up to the monitoring equipment that would ensure no harm befell the god while he cast the difficult spell. The trickster had one of his weathered leather-bound tomes open in his lap and was perusing a yellowed page of Asgardian spells with delicate fingertips. His brows furrowed together and he muttered a few halfhearted curses in Aesir, words Bruce had come to recognize meant something was wrong, and the doctor asked gently,

"Problem?"

"Yes and no," Loki sighed. "This magic is in construct feasible, and well within my power, but it falls under the category of enchantments forbidden in the Nine Realms. It involves infusing flesh and blood with the spark of life, a hidden power gifted to my people by the Old One and punishable under pain of death if misused, and transferring the memories of a living creature, also a subject of debate."

"Good thing we're not in Asgard," Tony said, somewhat sardonically. "Don't tell me you of all people are adverse to breaking a few rules."

Loki looked up at him, green eyes shining with the pure passion of a true scholar. "These are not courtly manners or social constructs I am upsetting, Anthony, this is a potent force that follows a specific set of guidelines and bylaws. Were I to disregard the severity of my actions, I could easily rip a hole in this dimension, or anger the deities who grant me my magic and be stripped of all power or my very life."

"Sounds all religulous and new-agey to me. I thought you said this was science."

"It is. Higher science than yours, that connected to the spirit."

"Whatever. Besides a few cultural taboos, any other cons to solidifying this shade of yours?"

Loki snapped his book shut. "The strain could kill me and will undoubtedly drain me dry of all magic for a few days, but what's that to you? You care not for my beliefs."

Tony sighed heavily, realizing that his mouth had gotten him into trouble once again.

"Loki, I didn't mean-"

"We're running out of moonlight, Stark, the sun will be up in mere hours." Loki hopped off the table, wriggling his fingers and assuming a wide stance, as if he were afraid the spell he was about to attempt would knock him bodily backwards. "I'm ready, Doctor."

Bruce looked trepidatiously from Tony to Loki, then sighed and muttered the ghost of a prayer as he calibrated the laser that would beam Tony's code into Loki's doppleganger. The god began by calmly summoning a shade, turning it this way and that, making sure that not one hair was out of place. To the untrained eye, there were now two Lokis in the room, although one held a very fixed expression and was a bit see-through at the edges. Satisfied that his creation was a perfect replica, Loki took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and began muttering quick incantations under his breath. His fingertips pulsed with green magic, a blinding gold halo radiating around his person as he threw everything he had into the spell. Power came off him in waves and torrents, pulsing with blinding ferocity into the shuddering shade.

Under the exertion Loki was forced down onto one knee and then the other. This actually panicked Tony a bit, and he tried to rush forward a help Loki, but Bruce caught him firmly by the arm, keeping one eye on Loki's vital signs.

"You can't interfere now. His vitals are holding. Give him a moment."

The two scientists unconsciously held their breaths as Loki's magic began to simmer down, turning from a maelstrom of green energy to a soft golden light that filled the whole room. Tendrils of energy wrapped around Bruce's legs and forearms, turning any patches of skin they touched Hulk-green, and a haze of emerald infiltrated Tony's arc reactor for a moment, speeding his heart up in an irregular way that made the billionaire grip the edges of the operating table as he waited for it to pass. Eventually, all the magic died out, fading into nothingness or evaporating like rain off a hot sidewalk. Then the unearthly smoke cleared to reveal Loki reduced to all fours on the ground, couching up bile and green sparks and swearing a blue streak in Aesir. Standing over him was the shade, who to everyone's wonder and horror was now just as flushed with life as his demi-god creator

"How perfectly curious," It murmured aloud in Loki's aristocratic tones.

That seemed to break the spell over the room, and both humans began to move quickly. Bruce rushed to Loki's side, letting the god lean heavily on him as he checked him for injury, and Tony immediately went to work on the mainframe-routed laser, powering it up and inputting his final calculations. Bruce had said that the irradiated codex only took when Loki's magic was still hot, and Tony wasn't about to waste time _talking_  to this thing.

There was real concern in Bruce's eyes as he knelt by Loki, a hand at his temple, eyes intently searching the other man's own.

"Are you alright? Loki, can you hear me?"

The god nodded, swatting him away feebly as he took a few gasping breaths. "I'm fine. Attend to the shade. You have mere moments."

Tony didn't need to be told twice. At Loki's bidding, he swung the mounted laser around and punched in the deploy code with agile fingers, watching in anticipation as a solid stream of light split out of the device to hit the shade square in the chest. Its person was still glowing with green energy, and the trace magic mixed seamlessly with the irradiated laser, sending streams of computer code dancing across its eyes and through its mind.

The real Loki watched with a certain feeling of eerie disenchantment as he spat the taste of bile from his mouth and wrenched the offer of water from Bruce's hand, downing half the bottle.

"Is it taking?"

Tony glanced at his readings once more, then walked over and put a hand on Loki's shoulder and squeezing reassuringly.

"Yeah. Fits like a glove. You did good, Lokes."

Loki stored the friendly pet name away in the back of his mind for later blackmail but half-smiled at it now. Once the laser program had run its course the beam powered down, leaving the shade (or was it a clone now?) thrumming with electricity and gazing down at its own hands as if they held the secrets to the universe. Loki stood shakily and took a measurde step towards it, which the clone mimicked down to the light breath the god took as he did so.

"Wow," Bruce muttered, taken aback by the sheer precision of Tony's shadow function.

"Next year's Stark tech," The man of iron explained. "Military grade cutting-edge artificial intelligence, the closest thing to real this side of a twin. It learns by imitating; give it ten minutes with Loki and it'll be able to anticipate his reaction in a scenario within the hundredth percentile of accuracy."

Loki looked into his own eyes with more pain than he thought he would feel. This thing was no longer a mirror image used to evade capture and trick his brother during childhood games of hide-and-seek, this was a living, breathing  _creature_ , a veritable child that he felt unsettlingly responsible for. It seemed to gaze into his soul, and this action made Loki's skin crawl.

"What must I do now?" The god whispered, trying his best to break eye contact with that damnable thing.

"In order to make this as realistic as possible, we need memory transfer," Bruce said, his discomfort when faced with this prospect evident in his voice. "Everything you know, everything you feel, every secret and hope, has to go into this thing. It really has to be you, Loki, down to the dying wish."

Loki's face was haggard. "I have no magic left, Bruce. I'm drier than most mortals."

"The clone's running hot. It's the battery here, and the conduit. You're just the database."

 Tony glanced at his watch nervously. Thirty minutes to sunup. "Go on. Give it a try."

Loki took an unsure step towards the clone, trying to swallow his panic as it mirrored him, drawing closer.  _It cannot harm you_ , he chastized himself.  _It is not real._ Loki reached out a hand to make contact with the shade, but Bruce's gentle voice stopped him.

"You don't have to, Loki. If you feel uncomfortable, we can pull the plug. No one will think any different of you."

The god was suddenly gripped by a fierce desire to break down in heaving sobs, perhaps let Bruce indulge his paternal instinct to hug him, but then the steel and ice interweaved through Loki's character dried his eyes and set his jaw in stone.

_I am Loki Laufeyson, bane of the nine realms. I will do what must be done._

And then he placed his hands on either side of the clone's face, pressing their foreheads together and willing his every living memory into the creation.

It was a surprisingly fast process, the years flipping by in seconds, but it wrecked Loki. He felt every passing emotion with all its original severity, the childhood bliss of companionship and comfort, the cold gnawing of jealousy that began in his early teens, the first taste of power on his silvered tongue and the bitterness that capped his late adolescence, and the betrayal and all-consuming rage that ushered in his adulthood. He could feel the heat off the flames of burning New York city mingling with the madness that had encroached on his mind during his siege of earth and shivered in the darkness of Odin's frigid sentence of banishment. Finally he came to the fated moment, his capture at Chitauri hands and his first night in their sadistic company.

Then something went very wrong. The connection was broken as the shade suddenly wrenched away from Loki's light touch, leaving the god with a splitting headache. The shade stumbled backwards, a wild look in its eyes, all pain and rage. Loki tried to speak to it in a few soothing Aesir words he used to calm the horses in his father's stables, but the creature retaliated with surprising ferocity, thin fingers encircling Loki's throat and slamming him up against a nearby wall. Shocked by this sudden turn of events, Tony and Bruce scramble over and hauled the two Loki's apart, Bruce comforting the frightened creator shouting in Aesir while Tony dragged the creation to the ground and cuffed him to the leg of an operating table.

"What happened?" Bruce cried.

"H-he, it, the shade…It refused to receive any more of what I had on the Chituari, that's as far as I got…The last few months didn't take, he knows nothing of my time on Earth."

"Maybe that's best," Tony panted, pulling himself up off the floor. "The Loki the Chitauri had didn't know us the way you do. This is more authentic."

Below them, the shade snarled and hissed for a moment more, then slowly curled up into a ball, arms wrapped around the leg of the table, and began to heave shuddering sobs. Loki looked upon it with pain and disgust, unable to stand the sight of himself reduced to nothing.

"Stop that," He snapped, harsher than he would have liked. "Stop it!"

This day had taken too much from him; too much power, too much pride, too many options. Bruce released his crushing grip on Loki's arms and rubbed them gently, not so much restraining now as consoling.

"Loki, let it be. It's alright, you did it. It's going to be alright, Loki."

There was a tense, quiet moment as the shade cried, Tony tried to catch his breath, Loki trembled, and Bruce made low, soothing noises. Then Fury's voice crackled to life through the loudspeaker above them, breaking the wretched silence.

"Thanos just touched down on the loading deck. I hope you've got something to show, because he ain't playing anymore. Bring what you have and I'll see what I can do."

Twenty minutes later, Loki watched from a safely concealed room with a window view as the Avengers walked his indoctrinated shade, complete with shackles and muzzle, out onto the helicarrier deck. He tried not to shudder as the doors to the small Chitauri ambassador ship slid opened and Thanos stepped out, smiling in that grim, animal way that was all teeth. That smile still haunted Loki's dreams. Thor hadn't left his brother's side since he had emerged shaken and pale from the lab and now rubbed his back with a massive hand, muttering awkward sympathies that Loki wasn't hearing. He merely watched as Fury exchanged a few tight, polite words with the Chiaturi overlord and then personally delivered the shade into Thanos' hands.

. Once the wildly protesting shade had been escorted by Chitauri foot soldiers onto the ship, Thanos bowed low and retreated himself into the recesses of his ship, which then took off from the loading deck with that terrible whine and a slightly purplish haze. Loki clicked on the walkie-talkie Clint had given him and spoke into it with clipped, professional tones.

"Barton, status report."

On the deck, Clint spoke nonchalantly into his lapel mike, trying to contain his relief. "Thanos took the bait. He's removing his ships and weapons from Earth's atmosphere immediately and making for his home galaxy two systems over. I think this is the last we'll see of him for a long time."

In his tower room, Loki dropped the walkie-talkie, leaned into Thor, and sobbed in relief.

That evening, the six Avengers, Loki, and Director Fury all sat around what was becoming their usual conference table, spent from playing God and averting a nuclear Apocalypse. Clint was out of the rafters and in a chair, letting Natasha rest her head on his shoulder, and Tony sat across from them, feet up on the table, a distant look in his eyes and stiff drink in his hands. Loki, who was exhausted and pale, was sandwiched between hovering Bruce and overprotective Thor, both who saw fit to maintain some sort of constant contact aas if they feared he would pass out at any moment. Loki indulged this because honestly, he wasn't sure that his legs  _wouldn't_  give out if he tried to stand up. Steve was lost in his thoughts at the end of the table, only half listening to what Fury was saying.

"…A serious crisis has been averted here today due to the quick thinking of some of our own who will not be noted due to the fact that their ego simply doesn't need the boost." Tony nodded at the backhanded compliment. "And I would like to thank those of you involved who made all this possible. Crazy-ass and too damn close for comfort, but possible. So. My thanks."

Bruce murmured a soft-spoken "you're welcome", and Loki, who had given up on sitting erect and was laying his head down on folded arms, slurred something that would have no doubt been very eloquent and charming if he wasn't so tired. Fury sighed, crossing his arms.

"That said, there is still one rather large issue that needs addressing. Earlier, Stark proposed adding Loki onto the team as an Avenger and I, as the Director, am forced to entertain the notion."

Loki cracked open an eye. "I assure Mr. Stark was speaking in jest, Director. Indulge his whims only as you would those of a raving lunatic."

Tony seemed injured. "I was dead serious, Reindeer Games."

Natasha and Clint both groaned audibly, anticipating the argument that was to come, and Clint muttered something about alcohol and an early night. Loki however, was incensed, and slowly lifted his head off the table with fire in his eyes.

"Earlier you claimed it was only a ploy to garner the Director's support of your plan and you would never consider such a thing without my express permission."

"You're not the only liar in the room," Tony scoffed.

In an instant, Loki had crawled across the table with the agility of a spoiled Hollywood starlet, spitting out threats. Thor rebuked his brother sharply, grabbing him by the ankle and yanking him down onto the table, leaving him to claw at a slightly amused Tony while flat on his stomach and hissing,

"I will turn you into a newt, Stark, a worm-ridden dog! Had I my magic you would be rendered speechless, impotent, blind and deaf, incapable of muscular control-"

Fury cut him off with a shouted ,

"Boy, get off the table! Who taught you to climb on furniture? That might fly in Asgard but not on my damn ship! That is mahogany, what is wrong with you? Little banshee…This is the kind of crazy you want on my team, Stark?"

Thor yanked Loki back into his seat and held him there while offering an apologetic,

"Please forgive my brother; he's had a very trying day. He tends to get cranky when drained of his power, he just needs a nap-"

"I am no child!" Loki hissed.

"Then stop acting like a spoiled godling," Thor growled sidelong. Tony, surprisingly, came to Loki's defense.

"Cut him some slack, Fury, I just asked him to waste himself in order to work some seriously forbidden magic , then gaze into the blackest pits of his soul and inflict all that bad mojo on a replica of himself, which we then handed over to the bane of his existence. Tempers flare. Punches get thrown. It's all teambuilding at the end of the day."

Fury sighed, massaging his brow. "Anyway, back on the subject, I perused the rulebook and spoke with my superiors and yes, what Tony suggested is feasible. However, it takes a unanimous team vote, which I don't think we're gonna get-"

"Perfect," Tony said, clapping his hands together in childlike glee. "Let's vote."

"I'm not finished, Stark, so calm your ass down! It is up, first and foremost, to Loki. We can't very well make him an Avenger against his will. And before you refuse, Mr. Laufeyson, I suggest you take into careful consideration the fact that your three month period of housing and amnesty is nearing its end. Without a valid reason to be in Avengers Tower, I can't legally allow you to stay. You'd be either back in Asgard or on your own, and for the sake of national security, working relationships with the Avengers would have to be severed. So. Any objections?"

Loki's cutting response withered when faced with these facts. He hated to admit it, he really did, he wished he could just hate them all, but he had grown fond of these strange miscreants who had opened their home to him. Come to think of it, he practically was one of them. He had used his magic to help them out on countless occasions and was trusted. Natasha was disgustingly close to a best friend, Bruce cared far too much about him, and he had fallen into the old routine of treating Thor as his brother again. Personal feelings aside, he couldn't afford to lose his home in Avengers Tower. It was all knew of this mortal world. He wasn't safe on the streets of New York yet; if he was recognized by a single person, it could very well turn into a witch hunt and a lynching. So Loki swallowed his pride and muttered,

"None."

"Didn't think so," Fury said. "Alright, let's make the rounds. Yea or Nay. Tony?"

"Aye aye, Cap'n," The billionaire said with a sloppy salute and mega-watt smile.

"Bruce?"

The Doctor nodded enthusiastically. "Yes. Absolutely."

"Fair enough. Thor, do I even have to-"

"I shall not abandon my brother in this bureaucratic trail by fire!"

"Yes, very good," Fury sighed, moving to the more difficultly convinced half of the table, firstly to the good Captain, who looked more than a little skeptical. "Steve?"

Steve pressed his lips together, seriously thinking it over. "I don't feel like I should, but I don't have a good reason for it and Loki's been a big help to have on board. So yes. Yes. Let's try it."

"Agent Romanoff?"

Nat yawned, half asleep already, and waved the question away as if it were the simplest thing in the world. "Loki honey, you keep doing nails and sparring like you do, and I'll pay you to stay. Second to Clint and the rooftop pool, you're the best thing in the Tower."

Fury  he turned to Clint.

"Barton? Make it or break it."

"Always me," Clint muttered, then glanced at Loki and smiled. "Aw hell. I've spent worse time with the guy. Yes."

Fury groaned, gritting his teeth. It wasn't that he didn't like Loki or appreciate what he could do for the team; there was just so much  _paperwork_  that came with the god, not to mention that six of them had already been a time bomb. Seven was bound to be…Mischief.

"Fine. You're a bunch of emotionally-compromised masochists with no sense of professionalism…Dammit it all. I, Nick Fury, swear Loki Laufeyson of Asgard in as an honorary Avenger with all rights, privileges, responsibilities, and access to commercial rights therin. Bam. You're done. Go have Stark make you a spangly suit. I'm done with this mess."

Loki leaned forward intently in his chair.

"Wait, I didn't agree to anything regarding costuming-"

"Take it up with Stark. I am officially off-duty."

Then Fury turned on his heel and retreated his quarters for a night of solitude. Steve clapped a stunned Loki on the shoulder, grinning in a very unwholesome, Unamerican way.

"Loki, my friend…You most certainly get a spangly suit."

 


	13. Sharp Dressed Man

is is hazing, Anthony Stark," Loki huffed, dragging a laundry basket stuffed with ripped leather and worn armor down the stairs to Tony's lab. "I do not need a "costume", I take great pride in my ceremonial dress!"

"Yeah, we noticed," Tony said, sipping coffee and checking the state of Stark overseas stock while JARVIS played Van Halen. "You just thank your lucky stars I agreed to re-outfit your old costume instead of making you a new one that I promise, would have been spangly and objectifying. _That_ is hazing. This is compromise."

The god glowered, dropping the laundry basket with a thud at Tony's feet as the billionaire had requested. "Natasha and Clint wear their SHEILD uniforms and my brother still dons his Asgardian garb in battle. This is ridiculous and unnecessary."

"Quit your whining, Witchy Woman," Tony said, swiping a handful of carburetor parts to the far end of the nearest table so Loki could dump the contents of his basket out to be examined. "Natasha and Clint's outfits are tailor-made to suit their strengths and could probably survive a nuclear bomb. Thor's get up allows for far more freedom of movement than yours does, and though that may do you well against frost giants and Asgardian swords, the first time he took a bullet, it punched right through the fabric. Would have killed him if he wasn't built like a bull moose. After that, he let me make my altercations. Full bulletproofing, flame resistantance, the whole nine yards."

Clint, who had come to watch what was undoubtedly going to be fun argument, grinned broadly from his seat on the table. "Don't tell me Thor is more apt to let science into his life than you are, Green Eyes."

Loki glowered at this. "Fine, fine…But only because it is already in desperate need of repair."

"Beautiful," Tony grinned, beginning to pick through the clothes Loki had brought him. "With you, it's just as much about P.R. as it is safety. Your image and your evil are one and the same in the public eye. People are lazy, we like symbolism and putting things in boxes. Even if it was to come to light that you were suddenly on the side of the angels, even if you were seen fighting alongside us, taking a hit for the team, the whole nine yards…If you did it in your old costume, people would be suspicious and uneasy." He pointed to a golden breastplate standing out among the pile of green and black. "This is new. You didn't wear this during the assault on New York, did you?" 

Loki shook his head, plucking up the breastplate and flipping it through his hands a few times. "Only in court. It's remarkably efficient. I thought you could make use of it."

Tony nodded, the gears in his mind turning at top speed. "Yeah...We can keep the basic principle intact, your colors, the Asgardian noble theme, but should eliminate any elements that would appear overtly threatening or dark."

"We're you a fashion designer in a past life?" Clint asked, in a voice that would have been innocent were it not for the goading element in his eyes.

"I'm sure your mom has something to say on the subject," Tony shot back, suddenly twelve years old and defending his machismo in the back of the schoolbus.

"My parents are dead," Clint shrugged, with about as much emotion as Natasha, because he wasn't about to lose a who-can-be-more-immature match to Tony. He changed the subject before Tony tried to come up with a witty retort to _that_ and failed miserably. "You know, SHIELD's next line of field agent body armor is overlaid with some kind of vibranium-based ore. You got any of that, Tony?"

Tony picked up on what Clint was suggesting and grinned, punching in his keycode into a nearby strongbox of raw materials. "Legolas, Stark owns that defense contract. I distilled the ore myself." He held a hand out expectantly for Loki's breastplate. "Gimmie."

The trickster hugged the breastplate to his chest. "Anthony…"

"I'm sure I have some gold lycra and pink glitter in the backroom. Don't make me remember where I keep it."

Loki's eyes widened a bit, and he handed over his armor without complaint. Tony selected a solid stick of adamantium alloy from his cache, opened an industrial-strength smelting pot, and dropped in the surprisingly heavy cylinder of ore. Loki was overcome by curiosity as he watched the ore melt into a bubbling matte liquid inside the pressurized pot.

"What is this vibranium?"

"It's a metal alloy," Clint offered. "Strongest known substance on Earth. It's what Cap's shield is made of, very useful. Tony's the first person in fifty years to re-examine the formula and find a more economic, stable way of putting it together."

Tony popped the lid on the smelter, attaching Loki's breastplate to a small winch that submerged the armor in the bubbling ore, then drew it up and held it aloft while the plate drip-dried. Then he turned his attention to Loki's leather overshirt woven though a green tunic, and groaned as he attempted to lift the mass of craftsmanship.

"Ugh, how much does that get up weigh? Twenty pounds? Thirty? How do you fight in it?"

  
"I don't," Loki sighed. "It's ceremonial, I told you. It was a birthday present from my father, hand crafted and made to my specifications. All noble children receive proper ceremonial clothes to be received in when they stand before the Allfather to be inducted into adult society. It took two months and a team of five to make."

"So it's like a quincenera dress," Tony deadpanned, punching a command into his computer that would instruct JARVIS to run an airbrush over the now-dry breastplate and return it to the original gold color.

"Thor's is less unwieldy," Clint pointed out.

"Thor went for flash and sex appeal," Loki said, distaste evident in his voice. "I chose something more traditional. Besides, have you seen his excuse for armor? There's twenty easy places to knife him without looking twice."

Clint laughed at this even though he knew he probably shouldn't. "That's true."

Tony snickered as he whistled for one his robots on wheels, who scooted over with mechanical whirrs and clickings that sounded eager to please. He placed the leather overshirt into its waiting pinchers, then punched a command into its fully outfitted computer system. The mobile A.I. rolled a few feet away from its master, holding the overshirt out in front of it with one claw and selecting a heavy duty aerosol can from a nearby rack with the other. The A.I. gave the can a shake, then began to thoroughly mist the contents over the pliable leather.

Loki watched with the fascination of a child at the Epcot Center mixed with the horror of a teen watching the badge of his manhood being torn apart.

"What is in that can, Anthony Stark?"

"Stark's house blend of industrial bulletproofing. Again, came out a pretty sweet military contract we signed with SHIELD. You can spray it over any existing surface and it toughens it with a tiny layer of light-weight Teflon. That said, you're not gonna be able to take anything at close range, but it's extremely useful for deflecting bullets gone of course or shot from far away. This stuff has diminished friendly fire fatalities by thirty-eight percent in the last year alone."

"What comes next?" Loki asked as he perused the remains of his outfit on the operating table. That simple statement was enough to inform Tony that he was no longer skeptical about the billionaire's meddling with his costume and that Tony now had (nearly) full creative reign over Loki's costuming.

"Well, the cloth undershirt probably." Tony untangled the last wrist gauntlet from the intricately folded shirt, high-necked, emerald green, and grafted to peek out with military strategy in the gaps in leather and metal. "What purpose does this even serve? The material's an inch thick and made of…What is this? Suede?"

"The fur of the mighty Bilgesnipe. It's extremely rare."

"And extremely hot. How did you not get heatstroke in this monkey suit, Reindeer Games?"

"Utter single-mindedness, the intoxicating liquor of supreme power, and the power of an alien race running hot in my veins," Loki said with a slightly sarcastic edge that did nothing to mask the absolute truth of the statement.

"Hopefully none of those factors are still at work?" Clint queried, a little harshly.

"You would know as well as I, Agent Barton. Do you still feel compelled to grovel at my feet, beginning for my affirmation and adoration?"

"No, but I'm starting to feel another compulsion involving you, me, and couple of modified arrows."

"You were never a proper match for me, Clint dear, I would hate to see this day end with you in pain."

"Girls, girls," Tony snapped, a little panicked as he stepped between them. "If you have unresolved antagonism, duke it out in the training room, not in my lab. Loki, take the bitch-factor down a few notches, Legolas…Don't make him bitchy."

Loki grinned, tugging on his smirking lips with glinting teeth, and Clint murmured some obscenities but allowed Tony to continue his work.

"We need to lose the undershirt, Lokes."

"No, without it the armor isn't wearable. And don't think your pet name has escaped my notice, Anthony. At least take me out a few times before you start using endearments and trying to make my clothes disappear."

Clint laughed so hard he nearly fell off the table.

"It's impractical and impossible to wear in the summer," Tony shot back. "And with all due respect, if I had any interest in you whatsoever, we would have fallen into bed already."

"I somehow doubt you're _that_ good. What shall I wear under the armor, then?"

"Way ahead of you. And trust me, I _am_."

Clint, who was laying on his back with his head hanging off the edge of the table, groaned loudly, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes. "Stop flirting and bring out the tech already! I didn't come down here to watch you two histrionics lie to each other; I want to see the goodies I'm gonna get from SHIELD next season."

Tony unlocked a drawer built into the table and slid it out with a little more pomp than was completely necessary. He removed a neatly folded garment from the small stack inside, holding it out to Loki triumphantly.

"Ta-da! Tell me I think of everything. Go on. Say it."

Loki pursed his lips and snatched up the garment, which turned out to be a shirt when unraveled. It was just his size, woven from tiny artificial fibers of a rich green color. Loki arched an eyebrow.

"This is the replacement?"

"Woven from the same stuff most of the SHEILD uniforms are. Form fitting, but light and durable. Most of all, it breathes. I even had one commissioned in your color with that god-awful high collar and V neckline you seem to favor."

Loki grinned, rubbing the smooth material between his fingers. Tony's voice was calculatingly nonchalant with just the right amount of insulting, but Loki knew it was to hide just how much consideration went into the garment. The billionaire could be downright generous when the whim struck him.

"You think of everything. Is there anything else you wish to modify here?"

Tony ran fingers through his hair, mad-scientist disheveled with Ralph Lauren precision as always. "Uh, let me think…You want these gauntlets?"

"Yes. They can be helpful."

"Fine. The pants are…Actually cool. Really cool. Could I-?"

"No."

"Like, for a special occasion or-?"

"No."

Tony huffed a sigh. "Fine. The boots are too nice for fighting; no traction, all embroidery. Tell Nat to take you combat boot shopping, she gets great discounts at the surplus stores."

Tony picked up the leather strap that Loki wore slung across his chest, the one with a beaten gold emblem slid over it. "What is this even for?"

"It is decorative," The god admitted sheepishly.

Tony threw it in the castaway pile he had made with the suede boots and thick cloth undershirt. "Let me guess, you want to keep the cape, don't you?"

"If Thor can keep his cape, so can I!"

"Watch out, your little brother is showing," Clint teased. "I think it's pretty badass, actually. Let him keep it, Tony."

"Fair," The billionaire shrugged. "Now, to weapons. You sure you're fine with your your magic?"

  
"More than, Anthony Stark."

"You're sure you don't want a gun?" Tony urged. "I've got some really nice guns. Big guns, all the special effects, whole nine yards."

"Oh, how trite and primal. What do you think I am, a mortal?"

Clint raised a finger, trying to cut into the conversation.

"Um, I want guns with special effects?"

"Hush, Rockin' Robin." Tony chided. "You get to wait until next season like the rest of SHIELD. Fury specifically told me not to give you or Nat get any sneak peeks."

"Loki gets sneak peeks!"

"Loki's not SHIELD." Tony clapped his hands and rubbed them together, delighted and scheming. "Alright, Reindeer Games, try it on, let's see how the whole package works together."

Loki mumbled about not having to do everything Tony told him, but wriggled out of his T-shirt all the same and pulled on the standard-issue SHIELD undershirt. He twisted slightly, more than pleased with his range of mobility, then pulled on the leather overshirt and strapped the breastplate on tight. Next came the golden shoulder guards and his wrist gauntlets. Loki looked at himself in the reflective faces of Tony's cabinetry, satisfied with how familiar the look was, but also enjoying the slight modernization and relative comfort the SHIELD technology added.

"It shall suffice," Loki announced.

"Perfect," Came Clint's voice from across the room. "Now turn around and let me see that pretty face."

Loki did so,mostly because Clint tone made the trickster suspicious. He was met with a high-speed bullet that struck him in the heart, ricocheting harmlessly off the vibranium-reinforced breastplate before burrowing itself harmlessly into the concrete wall that separated Tony's lab from his garage. Clint stood a safe distance away, smoking gun in steady hand. The impact had caused Loki to stagger back a few feet, and now he looked to Clint with shocked, angry eyes.

"You depraved quim! You shot me!"

"Well, we have to make sure Tony's new alloy worked somehow. Beautiful work, Stark."

"Uh, thanks," Tony mumbled, suddenly battling to mute his computer mainframe. Loki wasn't done being horrified.

"Are you psychotic? The bullet could have ricocheted and killed any of us! Thank the gods it went into that wall..."

"Not divine intervention," Clint put in, returning his gun to its holster. "Physics and marksmanship. Remember who you're dealing with."

Loki looked to Tony, hoping the billionaire would join him in berating the hawk. His anger evaporated when he noticed that Tony was on his phone, and not only that, talking in hushed, professional tones. Moments ago, he had muted his computer, meaning JARVIS had been trying to speak. The phone hadn't rang, so it was logical to assume that Tony had routed the A.I. to his cell phone for a more private conversation. And the only reason for a private conversation was of course subject matter regarding something Tony didn't want Loki to know. This piqued the god's interest and he strolled over and plucked the phone from Tony's fingers.

"JARVIS," He said smoothly. "Lovely to hear from you. What is it your creator wishes to keep from me?"

JARVIS, whose mainframe had been infused with Loki's magic, was always truthful with the god, even when it went against Tony's wishes.

_ You have a visitor, Mr. Laufeyson, _ The A.I. said, almost delicately. _They are very insistent to speak with you, but I would advise you to proceed with caution._

Loki's disposition suddenly sobered a little. There was something about the fear in Tony's eyes that stole his mirth away. "And why is that?"

_ Your mother is waiting in the foyer, Sir. She's quite distraught. _

Loki felt his blood go cold, and before he had time to insist on just how _ridiculous_ that was and why it couldn't _possibly_ be true, the sound of raised voices from upstairs filtered into the lab and silenced the three standing there. There was the demanding, cultured voice of a woman, and Natasha’s steady, low tones. Then another speaker, lower, more regal, with all the wrath of an enraged father woven into the thunder of his voice.

_ Your father is with her, Mr. Laufeyson. He is most displeased. _

The phone hit the floor, and Loki breathed out,

"Oh gods."


	14. Momma Don't Dance

Natasha settled down into her usual spot on the community couch with a cup of bitter pomegranate tea and the newest Bourne novel. She loved to giggle at the logistic inaccuracies of spy life and sigh at the descriptions of foreign cold places that reminded her of Mother Russia and had been looking forward to this novel for aged. This bliss lasted for the whole of ten minutes before the alarm system started blaring out an intruder alert and informing her that the intruder was on this floor and heading her way. Natasha was on her feet in an instant, slotting bullets into her nearby handgun, wishing she were in something more practical than yoga pants and Clint's T-shirt, and cursing Tony's supposedly infallible defense system. She swore, if it was that creep Doctor Doom _again_ …

A little of her cocky annoyance melted into cool professionalism as the intruder banged against the remote-locked door to the family room, and Natasha took a defensive position behind the couch, aiming her gun with both arms. She knew Clint was still dicking around in the lab, playing dress up with Loki, and she wished the arches was at her side. She would even settle for Loki; it was time for the prince to earn his keep. Bruce had taken a personal day and Steve and Thor were out on patrol so it was just her. She adopted a calm expression as the door was literally blown off its hinges and into a far corner.

A regal figure strode through the door, delicate hands folded underneath draping sleeves, distraught face framed by honey-colored curls streaked with the grey of wisdom. Natasha didn't recognize her, but she immediately identified the dress and stature as Asgardian and the crew of three poised ladies in waiting, one whose fingertips was still radiating the white light that had been used to "open" the door, denoted royalty. Natasha put the pieces together. Asgardian royalty. Angry mama bear type. And she matched Loki's wistful descriptions of his mother.

"Queen Frigga," Natasha said, voice cool and cordial despite the gun that was still trained on Frigga's chest.  _Pease don't make me shoot you_ , Natasha pled inwardly.  _Loki would_   _kill me._  

There were cold tears in Frigga's eyes. "How could you?"

"I don't understand the question, but whatever it is, we can discuss it civilly. Just have a seat, please."

Frigga was gravely insulted. "I pardoned your not bowing in my presence because you are not familiar with Asgardian custom, but I will not take orders from a mortal. Sigyn?"

The handmaiden named Sigyn, apparently the same one who had blown the reinforced door out with her white-hot magic, lifted a hand casually, and Natasha's gun was immediately ripped from her hands and flew harmlessly into the sorceresses own. Now unarmed, Natasha fell back on her more preferred method of crisis diffusement; negotiation.

She began by standing straight with chin up and arms raised, palms exposed. A stance that was equal parts power and submission, nonthreatening but with a point to prove. She nodded with respect at the Queen, the closest Natasha would ever get to bowing to anyone.

"I'm sorry for my insolence, but the way you arrived made me believe you were a threat. I am still inclined to believe that, because I don't know how you got into Avengers Tower. Or from Asgard to Earth for that matter."

"The Bifrost has long since been repaired, but is under tight security and can only be used with an executive order. I am an executive order, obviously. Locating and penetrating your Tower was no challenge, especially with Sigyn at my side. She is the most powerful sorceress Asgard has ever known."

The sorceress, beautiful in a subdued way that was all strawberry blonde locks and storm grey eyes, nodded humblr.

"Did you think I would not come?" Frigga asked icily, cranking up the threat level in the room a few more notches. "When I found out what you mercenaries had done? Tell me, did you speak on his behalf on that terrible day or did you let them bind and beat him as before? After he claimed you as friend! Loki told me you six were a merciful and warm group and that the God your people worship would never allow that kind of barbarism you conceded to! He trusted you, do you understand? Do you know how hard it is to win Loki's trust?"

"Loki?" Natasha asked, genuinely confused. And then it hit her.  _Of course_. Frigga had somehow gotten word of her son's extradition and now sought an explanation. "Ma'am, your son is safe. I realize how impossible that may seem under the circumstances, but I can explain-"

"Explain away this, Natasha Romanoff," Frigga hissed, producing from the deep folds of her sleeves a small stack of photographs, which she threw with disgust at Nat's feet. "The depraved Chitauri lord Thanos sent them as a parting gift, gloating that they should stop Asgard from ever trifling with him again. Look and mark well, Lady Natasha. See what blood is on your hands!"

Natasha slowly leaned down to pick up the photos, which were obviously Chitauri make, some kind of plasma caught between thin sheaves of plastic, and felt her blood go cold in her veins. The stills were of Loki, or what had once been Loki, in such a state that even Natasha, with all her interrogation and torture experience, felt her stomach turn. There were bruises, burns, and cuts here that would have killed a mortal, and a picture of…What was that? …Oh dear God that was his arm.  _The bastards._

Natasha felt the photos fall from her fingers numbly, her mind racing. The Chitauri were torturing Loki's shade. Obviously, that was what he had been crafted for. She had rationalized and compartmentalized it, told herself that a shade wasn't a real person, but the torment and hatred in those miserable green eyes was very real. And Frigga thought that her son was still on that ship. The poor woman.

"We never gave Loki up," Natasha said evenly, swallowing her guilt and disgust. "What you're seeing is a souped-up shade, Loki can explain it better than I can. He's in the lab with Tony safe and sound, just let me-"

Natasha took a trepidatious step for the lab door. Sigyn extended a graceful hand and melted the knob without much effort. Frigga sighed heavily, picking up the photographs and sitting down at the kitchen table. There were tears in her eyes as she produced four or five brief letters in an elegant hand to set next to them.

"He spoke so highly of you," The Queen whispered, her tears falling onto Loki's letters. "You're his favorite, you know. Were his favorite...The beautiful SHIELD agent with the disposition of steel and a heart of gold, that's what he said…"

"He wrote to you," Natasha breathed, her heart breaking a little. And then, with some insistency, "Your son lives."

"Do not lie to me! I can always feel my son, even when he is far in body and heart from me, his magic does not lie! I cannot sense him here, he is gone and away!" Frigga shrieked, tears coursing down her noble face. Then she seemed to compose herself and lifted her head, spine straight as a ramrod. "I am sorry, Natasha Romanoff, but I am not here to argue with you. Before this day is out, you and your team will be escorted to the seat of Asgard to stand trial for war crimes before my husband. May the gods of old look down upon you in mercy, for Odin will not. You may come willingly or my husband's guards shall escort you bodily."

Nat felt every fiber of her being tighten and harden, flesh turning to Kevlar, fingers to nimble implements of pain, legs to weapons of mass destruction. There was an unavoidable fight coming on, the promise of violence heavy in the air, and Natasha had been trained to view defeat as a inconceivable option.

"Our sort don't do down without a Godawful fight, ma'am."

The Queen sighed, disappointed." I had expected as much."

As if on cue, the trio of handmaidens stepped away from the doors to make way for the dozen Asgardian footsoilders who flooded in. Natasha managed to down three and knock two unconscious before she was wrestled to her knees and held there panting and snarling. Someone entered the room with a quick, confident pace, and Natasha was treated to the sight of gleaming boots and then hem of a mighty cape as the stranger stopped in front of her. She looked up with rage in her eyes through a sheaf of russet hair.

Odin glowered down at her, the fire in his one eye reminiscent of Fury on a bad day.

"You will pay for what you have done, Natasha Romanoff."

In the lab, Tony was already on damage control, dialing his cell furiously.

"I'll tell Fury to get a diffusement team down here ASAP. Just chill here Loki; you're the catalyst in this chemical equation, I wouldn't want-"

Loki snatched the phone from Tony's fingers and snapped it shut.

"No, Anthony. This is my fight, I can handle it like an adult. Calling the Director in would be as god as declaring interdimensional war."

"What do you think Daddy dearest has on his mind? Don't be stupid about this."

"I can handle my own adoptive family," Loki glowered. "Something you wouldn't know much about, come to think of it."

Tony laughed, but it was curt and bitter, without humor. "Loki, I have the corner on the Daddy issues market! You own stock, but I run the place!"

"Both of you shut up," Clint snapped. "Tony, Loki's right. He's a seasoned negotiator, and if worse comes to worse Odin will be too focused on yelling at him to declare war on Midigard."

Tony had his mouth open to argue, then noticed that Loki was already punching his keycode into the far door.

"Hey!" The man of iron protested as the trickster slipped out. "We didn't even talk about the helmet yet!"

Loki poked his head back in the door momentarily. "Anthony, you are admittedly something close to my friend, but know I do not lie when I say I will have a sudden change of morals and heart and promptly attack this fine city if you so much as touch my helmet."

And with that, he was through the door and sprinting up the stairs to the living room. Pathetic as it was, he wanted nothing more than to run and hide from Odin's wrath, but Natasha was up there trying to talk his father down, and he knew from experience that that tactic simply did not work. So he swallowed back his shame and stepped casually through the door as though he lived there, which strangely enough, he did.

The scene was tense and comically frozen in time at the sight of him. Frigga was seated at the kitchen table, flanked by her handmaidens and wiping delicate tears off her cheeks. Odin was standing over a scowling Natasha and the room was swarming with fully armed Asgardian guards, armor glinting in the setting sunlight streaming in through the large windows. Every single one was rendered speechless by his appearance.

"Father," Loki noted, with more ice in his voice than he had needed to use in a long time. Living dependent on the favor of the others and within the comfortable companionship of the Avengers had thawed some of the prouder parts of him, but now he felt the tip of his tongue go cold, the feeling spreading down the back of the throat. He was calm, cunning, and in control. Loki Laufeyson, bane of the nine realms, once again.

The rational part of his mind compartmentalized and asseed the situation while repressing the part that was screaming things like  _Mother's crying, the shock must have killed her, oh gods Natasha is in danger and I allowed it to happen_ , and  _Father is angry. Should leave, can't do this, hate him so much…_ Instead Loki replaced these babblings with what was pertinent, the fact that  _Odin and Frigga have received word of my shade's capture, probably by Thanos hoping to secure some sort of national security through fear tactics. Now they arrive seeking retribution for Fury's breach of trust. A quandary easily solved by my miraculous appearance._

Loki raised his hands smoothly in a surrendering gesture, speaking as though commenting on the weather.

"Thanos did not lie in his rather tasteless gesture of gloating over my defeat. He has in his possession a creature which appears to be me but is rather a shade held together on the physical plane by Midgardian technology and my magic. It was the only course of action open to us; the Chitauri were threatening Earth with nuclear war if the Avengers did not give me up. I remain, however, uncompromised and perfectly safe here. Please release Miss Romanoff, she is a friend."

As Loki spoke, Odin slowly advanced on his adoptive son, face a blank expanse of disbelief. Loki did not allow this to deter him and nodded in thanks as Odin numbly gestured to his captain of the guard to release Nat. She was on her feet in an instant, ready to come to Loki's aid if he so required her talents, but he god of mischief looked to her and shook his head subtly. Then he turned again to face his once-Father, arching a smooth eyebrow.

"Do you find my explanation sufficient, Allfather?"

Odin's response was to slam Loki into the nearest wall and hold him there by the collar of his shirt, hissing vehemently.

"You let us believe you were captured. You mother was in hysterics, Loki, the entire city went into mourning!"

Loki snarled like an animal and thrashed a bit, the all too familiar rage spreading through his veins like a resilient infection.

"I had no way of knowing you would hear of this incident! I am no child, and I am not beloved by the people! Do not lie to me! Release me!"

"You are our prince, Loki, don't play the martyr! Your actions have been selfish and destructive, but do you think that warrants us loving you any less? You insult me, boy."

"Do not mock me with false affections!" Loki cried, throwing all attempts to remain calm out the window. "You came with a purpose and saw your course through, now leave me in peace! I have been blessedly free of your influence in my life for months, I can't have you patronizing me now, do you understand? I simply cannot-"

In his adolescent anger, Loki hadn't noticed Frigga rise and walk swiftly across the room to him, and now she slapped him briskly across the face. This stopped the stream of icy, poisonous words upon impact, and Loki stared at her openmouthed, green eyes shining in shock. Even Odin, in his moments of passionate displeasure, had never raised a hand against his youngest son, and Frigga rarely did so much as raise her voice. Now fresh tears sparked in her hard eyes.

"We thought you dead, do you understand? After everything we all went through, we were tormented by the thought of you dying miserable and alone on the damned ship, so don't fight Loki, for once in your life do not talk back to your father. Just let us love you, wretched beautiful boy that you are."

With that, Frigga threw her arms around Loki's neck and hugged him, sobbing into his shoulder. Loki's hands came up shakily to rest on his mother's back, an instinct no amount of self-discipline could deny, and then he gave into the moment fully, embracing her fiercely.

"I'm sorry," He choked quietly. "I'm so sorry."

It had no specification, but Frigga knew what her son meant. _I'm sorry for everything I did to grieve you._  Loki did not make emotional professions easily and this was likely all his parents were ever going to get out of him in way of repentance, but it was more than enough.

She pulled away from the god of mischief, golden eyes searching his face.

"Loki, I could not feel your presence…"

Frigga had, like any good daughter of an Aesir noble, undertaken basic magical training. She could heal a cut and call a withering plant back to life, but not much else. Except, that is, the uncanny kinship her magic had with Loki's own, a supernatural bond that allowed her to perpetually sense his location and overall disposition. Loki immediately figured it out.

"I've been in the lab all day," He said with a weak smile. "Stark is paranoid; the basement is impenetrable to any force, psychic or otherwise."

Frigga laughed, touching her son's face as if seeing him for the first time. "Yes, the technological magician you spoke of…You used magic on a shade? Surely you did not cast the Spell of Flesh?"

"Alas mother, I did," Loki said a bit miserably, looking down at his feet. Frigga was appalled.

"You would anger the spirits and give an innocent shade life just to condemn him to such tormet?"

Odin spoke, calmly and without judgement. "Hush Frigga. He would not have done so lightly, and not without good reason. You know that."

Loki looked up at his father in surprise, and his eyes said what his tounge could not yet manage.  _Thank you._

At the precise moment, Steve and Thor trampled through the front door, chortling with laughter at some unknown joke. They immediately froze when they saw the Asgardian mess in their living room, Steve with panic scrawled across his face as the various scenarios in which this could all go terribly wrong flashing behind his eyes, Thor with pure, enthused joy.

"Father!" He roared. "Mother!"

The blonde prince galloped to them, stopping only to pump the hand or thump the back of a soldier who happened to be an old school chum, then hugged both his parents at once, eliciting good natured if reluctant laughter from the both of them.

The god drew back with a wide smile. "You did not tell me you were planning a visit. Verily, I would have prepared a magnificent spread of a feast for you had I known! Oh, it is a blessing straight from Freja to see you both in such good health. What brings you to Midigard?"

Frigga smiled delicately, trying to find words, and Loki sighed, shuffling his feet. Odin supplied the answer. "The Chitauri sent us pictures of them torturing your brother. We were rightfully disturbed and came here seeking retribution."

"Oh," Thor said, a little confused. Then, as the whole situation dawned on him. "Oh! That mess with the nuclear bombs and the death threats…I was going to tell the both of you, doubt not this, I just became a bit distracted, uh…"

"Saving the world," Loki said, the slightest trace of sarcasm in his voice. "Rescuing small furry animals from trees and making fair maidens swoon with his grace and vigor."

There was a pause, then Odin roared out a laugh and squeezed his son's shoulder, with love but not without inflicting some pain, as was his way.

"It is truly wonderful to see you haven't changed." Odin kissed his son's head, smoothing back the dark hair as he used to do when Loki was a much younger boy, then spoke a little softer. "You, as these Midgardians say, went off the deep end, but I believe I was the one who pushed you. Your actions against the humans were inexcusable, but so was my banishing you to Jotunhiem. Not a day has passed that I do not deeply regret that decision, made in the heat of betrayal and disappointment."

Loki had no words, but he was saved from answering as Frigga tapped his newly reinforced breastplate with a sculpted fingernail, appraising his new outfit.

"What a smart suit! What is it for?"

"Loki is an Avenger now," Thor supplied exuberantly. Frigga's chin nearly hit the flor.

"What?"

"Well done!" Odin exclaimed approvingly, thumping Loki on the back a few times. "It is only proper for a son of Odin, is it not my dear?"

Loki was about to icily correct Odin on the "son" point but was cut off by his mother's worrying.

"It is not, he'll be killed! Look at him! You're too thin darling, haven't you been eating? And your time in prison must have been so traumatizing…

"Mother please…" Loki groaned.

"No, none of that, you're far too young."

"Thor's only two and a half years older than me!" Loki whined, sounding much younger than he was hoping for.

"Have you been in a battle yet?" Odin said hopefully.

"No," Thor said, speaking for his brother. "But he did save Miss Romanoff's life."

"Oh how marvelous, let's hear about that."

Steve, who had been standing stunned while the royal family acted weirdly and unexpectedly like an actual family, now whispered sidelong to a relatively nonthreatening Asgardian solider,

"Is this…Normal?"

"Oh, quite," The guard scoffed. "Thor will kill a frost giant on neutral territory or Loki will steal from an Alfhiem lord and there's all manner of shouting and bickering, but then they all end up crying and hugging. It's awful really, been like this for years."

Steve nodded slowly as Tony suddenly appeared from the lab door, hands above his head.

"Don't shoot! I'm a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, we're very rare!"

"Oh look," Frigga cooed, stopping her embarrassing query of whether Loki had met anyone yet and why didn't he get a nice Midgardian girl like Thor? "Anthony, I believe? The man of iron."

Tony looked confused, then dropped his hands casually in an attempts to be cool.

"Yeah, that's me. Pleasure to meet you Ma'a-ack!"

The "ack" came from Figga embracing him warmly. Not being touched unless he was expecting it falling under the list of strange things that bothered Tony immensely, right next to being handed things. The Queen kissed both his cheeks in a light, cordial way, beaming at him.

"Loki's told me all about you. The "narcissistic caffeine junkie". I think he's jealous of your technological prowess, myself."

Tony grinned, patting the Queen gently on the back. "Alright, I like her."

A moment later Clint appeared out of the lab and gravitated naturally to Natasha. He was prompt found by Frigga, who informed than that when they had children it was only right Loki should be the godparent. Odin struck up a conversation with Steve and they got along so well that everyone, Loki included, was quite surprised and a bit confused. The soldiers and handmaidens started mulling about too, commenting on the Tower and Midgardian weather, and soon Tony was at the bar pouring drinks and DJing through the fantastic speaker system.

Bruce was incredibly surprised when he returned home after a restful day alone to find the living swarming with Midgardians who were eating hors' doeuvres and chatting happily with the rest of his team. He was immediately hugged with much enthusiasm by the King of Asgard, who insisted he was the best thing to happen to Loki and insisted he have a drink and stay for the cocktail party. Bruce accepted graciously, then mentally added "surprise cocktail parties for Norse gods" to the list of things Tony wasn't allowed to do without running it by Bruce first.

It was a few hours later, after Odin and Frigga had sufficiently caught up with their boys and helped Tony empty the fridge, they decided it was time to go. There was many a tearful goodbye (Frigga and Thor) and annoyed looking at watches (Loki). But truth be told it had been-- and Loki shuddered at this thought--  _nice_  to see his family again and so much better than nice to feel, oh it was disgusting, loved.

Loki said a polite goodbye to all the Asgardians (once a prince always a prince), then had an awkward exchange by the door with Sigyn, the beautiful sorceress who had destroyed Stark security without barely lifting a finger. Tony seemed to remember some mention of an ex-girlfriend Loki had met in the libraries of Alfheim, and the way Loki murmured to her insistently, then caught her hand as it went flying to slap him, confirmed the connection. The two spoke a moment more, both trying to outsnark and out eye-roll the other, then kissed briefly before Sigyn icily excused herself and followed Frigga out.

Loki returned to lean against the bar with a groan, rubbing his eyes as though he had been awake for millennia.

"She's cute," Tony offered.

"We're estranged," Loki put, as though that explained everything. He was exhausted from dealing with literally every person in his life who had ever had a tie to him, which when you were an ex-supervillian who avoided high emotion when possible, was a miserable business. Then, with Nat and Clint both excusing themselves and Thor chatting with Steve and Bruce on the couches, Tony sidled up to him and said,

“Friendly reminder; my trial date's in a week”

"What?” Loki snapped. “I never agreed to be your lawyer!"

"Uh, it sorta comes under the "you owe me one" umbrella of making you an Avenger."

"As I recall, I did not request that "favor" either."

Tony shrugged, grabbing his coat and pulling Loki towards the door.

"Well I did anyway. Aren't I just the nicest fella?"

"Fine. To the library then, to study your Midgarian law?"

Tony rolled his eyes. "Please. In my world, presentation is everything. We're going to Hugo Boss."

 

 


	15. The Fame Monster

Loki picked with delicate distaste through the racks of heinously overpriced merchandise at this "Hugo Boss" Tony had spoken so highly of, wondering idly if it wasn't a bad idea to be out gallivanting in the open. Loki draped a scarf over his shoulders, gazed in the mirror, decided that magenta was an awful color no matter how many designers raved about it, then glanced around desperately for Tony. Loki looked rather like a lost puppy, albeit a lost puppy that wasn't comfortable leaving the house without the security of anonymity or veins running hot with preternatural magic.

His billionaire fashion consultant was leaning against the check-out counter, flirting in his usual quick-talking way with a girl from sales. It was relatively harmless, a habit he couldn't really turn off no matter how Pepper glared at him for it, and would probably guarantee them a lower price on their purchases when it was all said and done. Loki interrupted all the same.

"Anthony," The god murmured, taking the man of iron's elbow smoothly. "Might I have a word?"

"Ah!" Tony cried delightedly, giving Loki a one-armed hug that made the inhuman stiffen a little. He had never been accustomed to physical affection as a child and preferred to keep the company of those who maintained fairly hands-off realtionships, Nat and Bruce being wonderful in this capacity. Tony was the complete opposite; loud, handsy, and obnoxiously outgoing. Like Thor, only with more suavity and a sharper tongue. Maybe that's why Loki could tolerate and even enjoy Tony's presence despite these little outbursts of chumminess, because the traits that set Tony apart from Thor's category were ones that Loki had no trouble seeing in himself.

"Loki, Lola; Lola, Loki. You're names even sound the same, you two will get along great. This is the one, darling, think you can do anything for him?"

Tony's tone panicked Loki; he could have just as easily been setting the god up on a blind date as arranging a business partnership. This Lola, to her credit, recognized Loki despite the haircut and Midgardian jeans, had a small three second panic attack, then smiled with all the professional poise of someone who had seen worse. It reminded Loki of Pepper.

"Any friend of yours is a friend of the stores, Mr. Stark."

"Lola's my favorite," Tony gushed. "She knows what you want before you want it. I don't let anyone else touch me when I'm here. She's a pretty bad-ass tailor too, you want a totally different cut, she can whip it up before the week's out."

Lola smiled weakly, still trying to process the sensory input coming into her brain. Alright, Tony Stark was in her store, he was certainly a character and always kept her on her toes, but he was an old client and they had developed their own repertoire. She hadn't expected him to bring her anyone else, but that would have been perfectly fine except for the fact that he apparently wanted her to dress Loki, the one and only "on your knees and beg for subjugation" batshit crazy Norse god Loki. That said, she did grudgingly trust Tony (what American didn't?) and this tale, pale stranger didn't look megalomaniacal or insane, rather slightly uncomfortable and unfamiliar with custom. Still, she had to ask.

"Uh, Mr. Stark, I hope you don't mind my asking, but is this friend of yours…Well, is the Loki that uh,  _frequented_  our fine city about eight months ago, I believe he's…Well, isn't he-?"

Loki rolled his eyes with a disgusted noise, as deeply irked by stammering as always, although he did feel bad for this poor girl. The god extended his hand for a shake, turning on the charm.

"Asgardian, stable of mind, and perfectly harmless, I assure you. I'm sorry, Anthony did not properly introduce us. I am Loki Laufeyson, prince of Asgard and friend of the Avengers. And you are…?"

"Lola Donnely," She supplied, shaking the offered hand.

"Donnely, lovely," Loki murmured, producing a ten dollar bill out of seemingly nowhere. "Well Miss Donnelly, it has been a pleasure to partake of your company, but I will not be requiring your services today. I am sure you are magnificent at your craft, but Anthony is all the guidance I will be needing. That said, please accept this as a token of my gratitude at your offer and apology for my sudden appearance, which I realize can be a bit disconcerting," He flicked the bill into her surprised hand, offering a genuine smile. "A pleasure to have met you, Miss Donnelly. Now." Here he turned to Tony, beginning to drag him away from the counter. "Anthony, a word?"

Tony squawked out a protest but gave in, flashing Lola a smile as Loki pulled him into the tie section.

"That was awesome! I swear you could talk a dragon into handing over its hoard of gold and have it thinking you did it a favor. You are gonna kill in court! Where did you get ten bucks, by the way?"

"Your back pocket," Loki said nonchalantly, appraising an emerald silk tie.

Tony clapped his hands together sharply, barking a laugh. "And he pickpockets too! You beautiful sneaktheif." It was then he seemed to realize that Loki had been unable to make proper eye contact with anyone since they left the Tower and was oozing self-consciousness. They were not emotions that suited him, or ones that Tony was accustomed to see written into his ever-haughty features. "What's the issue, Reindeer Games?"

"Has it not occurred to you that dropping me in the middle of crowded shopping mall might be a bad idea? That Lola girl reacted marvelously to my presence, you should award her the highest condemnation in retail, but not everyone else will take me in stride. I did try to enslave them and destroy all of New York, in case it's slipped your attention-deficit addled brain."

"Loki, it's fine, really. Fury's already getting press releases ready to inform the fine people of this country that you are indeed, a good guy. Besides, no one recognizes you out of leather and armor." Alright, that was a lie and they both knew it. Loki was incredibly noticeable. So Tony countered with, "The police have already been notified that you aren't a threat, and they'll tell that to any concerned citizen who calls in a Loki sighting. Besides, if you get so much as five words in edgewise, they'll probably trust you with their firstborn and the keys to their car."

Loki gave a grudging nod and sighed. "It's strange, this protection…Obviously I enjoy being able to leave to Tower at will and explore the city but….It's still so strange."

"You've got to get over this culture shock thing, Lokes," Tony muttered, holding up two different shirts up to Loki, trying to decide which made him look less pale. "Seriously, you've been pardoned by the almighty word of Daddy Fury, no one can touch you. Unless you screw up, obviously, but I've got that one in spades. I mean, I'm getting sued by the state of New York for Christsakes."

Loki huffed a soft laugh, the kind he couldn't quite repress after concentrated exposure to the billionaire, the kind that told Tony he was making headway in his unprecedented, hard to navigate relationship with the god. Then Tony added, almost as an afterthought,

"You can introduce yourself as an Avenger, you know, not a "friend of the Avengers. The title gets you all kinds of neat free stuff. And dames."

Loki made a gagging noise more befitting of a sixteen year old girl. "But the sentimentality of the concept is so stifling!"

"Get over it," Tony shrugged, jarring the god down one of his usually abrupt subject changes. "What did you find?"

Loki glanced to the articles of clothing he had been holding draped over an arm since their conversation began, holding them up so Tony could see.

"Loki," The billionare sighed. "Those are dresses."

"Well, yes. Power suits, I believe, are the correct term. I like this skirt and blazer…"

"We're in a men's clothing store, where did you even find  _dresses_?"

"Oh, I've been next door at Charlotte Ruse for the past twenty minutes." Loki seemed to notice Tony's distress and queried, "I was under the assumption I would be appearing in my female form? It's far more beguiling and not half as recognizable."

Tony took the handful of cocktail dresses and tailored dress pants from Loki and dumped them into a nearby sorting bin, guiding the god through the maze of Hugo boss with a tug on his sleeve.

"No dice, kiddo, your acting as my lawyer serves a dual purpose. Well, three purposes, if I'm to be honest. Firstly, you're very good at what you do and I don't feel like paying a grotesque amount in fines to the state of New York. Secondly, this is your first official foray into the human world that doesn't involve blowing stuff up, so you need to do it as Loki, no-tricks male Loki, charming likeable your-kid-could-have-a-poster-of-me-and-it-wouldn't-make-them-a-serial-killer Loki."

"And the third reason?"

"It's going to piss Fury off royally."

Loki smirked.

"In that case, how could I say no? But I already have suits, Anthony, nice ones. This entire excursion is unnecessary-"

"Aren't I allowed to do something nice upon occasion, Reindeer Games? I'm a multi-billionaire who feels like blowing money on you. Most people would take full advantage of the opportunity."

Loki opened his mouth to counter with a snide remark, then realized something that gave him pause. This was Tony's strange, emotionally detached way of showing Loki that he had accepted him. You couldn't have seen it by looking at him, taunting smirk fixed forever on his lips as he scrolled through old text messages on his high-tech phone, eyes hidden by designer shades, but Loki was good at reading people. So he recognized the gesture for what it was and immediately appreciated Tony's nonchalance and subtlety.

"Very well. I'll take that an in invitation to destroy your bank account."

"Many have tried, none have succeeded. Go nuts.”

Loki waited until he was hidden by a rack of waistcoat to indulge in a small laugh. Tony was hilarious, truth be told, but the god wasn't about to give Tony's ego the satisfaction of knowing that he thought so. So Loki hummed lightly as he flipped through the neatly pressed piles of collared shirts, trying to figure out the Midgardian sizing chart. This went on for a pleasant moment until he sensed an annoying presence hovering behind him and turned slowly, arching a quizzical eyebrow.

Two mortal females were standing with awestruck expressions a few feet away, no older than fifteen human years. One was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with Captain America's shield; the other wore a gold headband which sported tiny gilded horns. Loki's eyes narrowed suspiciously, and he pointed at headband girl and opened his mouth to voice a confused question, but she cut him off with a breathless,

"Oh. My. God. Ohmygodohmygodohmygod. I told you it was him. OhmyGod."

"It's not him," Captain America girl hissed sidelong, perfectly content to carry on this baffling conversation with her friend and leave Loki hanging.

"It is too! Look at him! I mean, he's in disguise, but he did that in Germany, remember?"

"C'mon, you think you see him everywhere…"

Loki held up his hands smoothly, palms out, cutting off the annoying chatter.

"I'm sorry, can I help you?"

It was Captain America girl's turn to hyperventilate. "Oh my Goooood!" She squealed, flapping her hands about her face in a very unbecoming way. "It  _is_  him! He has the accent and everything!"

"Are you Loki Laufeyson?" Headband girl asked, with a gleam in her eyes the god didn't like.

"Calm yourself, hormonal, excitable child. I demand to know how you have come to have knowledge of me." There was dead silence filled only by the looks of absolute idolatry on the girl's faces. "I pray you speak!" Loki snapped. He was flustered and annoyed, and in such a state he tended to forget his Midgardian vernacular. The pint-sized menaces seemed to be toying with the idea of sobbing out of pure bliss.

"Okay, so like we, well mostly me, we're like your biggest fans,” The one wearing Loki’s horns said. “You like, have no idea. I've read everything ever written about you, seen all the TV specials, you're like, inspiring."

"Seriously," Captain America girl agreed solemnly.

"How…Work intensive," The god murmured slowly, clawing behind him to find to his horror that there was a wall to his back and both sides. Trapped.

"You're like, a genius!" Loki’s admirer squealed.

"Seriously," The other girl said.

"How you tried to take over the world, it was just like…Oh my God, you know? Not the fact that you were trying to  _take over the world_ , but how you did it, oh my God it was so badass. I totally think deporting you to Asgard was so unfair, it wasn't your fault about everything, you know? I know about Odin and everything, I totally get you, you were just trying to prove yourself. You're like, misunderstood."

"Completley respectable," Captain America girl said with a nod. "How did you even get back here? Why aren't you trashing stuff? Are you in witness protection or something?"

"Or something," Loki said weakly, looking around desperately for Tony.

"Ohmygod, that's so cool. Are you like, a good guy now? I mean, you haven't tried to hurt us, and there's some rumors going on that you're living in Avengers Tower, that must mean you're a good guy, right?"

"Or something," The god repeated, appalled that  _he_  of all people had run out of agile words.

"I saw you come in here with Tony Stark," Captain America girl continued, oblivious to his distress. She giggled conspiratorially. "So spill, are you two like… _Together_? Because that would be hot.”

"We really aren't," Loki said, beginning to back away, thanking Freya that he didn't have his magic, because if he did, he would be explaining to a pair of wailing parents why their daughters had been turned into horned toads. "Anthony is just a friend-"

"Oh my god you're friends! And you call him Anthony, how adorable."

"You know," Headband girl said softly, sidling up to Loki a little. "I totally picked up what you were throwing down about human nature, us craving subjugation and all…Between you and me, you could subjugate me anytime you wanted."

Loki looked at her with abject horror in his eyes, then called out without much caring that the whole store could hear,

"Anthony!"

Tony appeared a moment later, peering around the racks with a curious expression. He immediately deduced what was going on and then whipped his sunglasses off with a longsuffering sigh.

"Alright you bloodthirsty harpies, leave him alone."

The girls spun around at the intrusion, then began to scream even louder and bombarded Tony with questions and requests for autographs. Over at the check-out desk, Lola spotted the incident and rolled her eyes, gesturing to Tony for his permission to call security. He nodded, then began to guide the two teenagers out into the center of the store, ignoring their insistence that they wanted to talk to Loki for "just one more minute". The girls were set upon a moment later by two burly security guards who tried to gently and tactfully remove them from the store. Headband girl was surprisingly meek when faced with criminal charges, but little miss Captain America was not deterred and had to be slung over one of the guard's shoulders and carried bodily out of the store screaming,

"I LOVE YOU, TONY STARK!"

Tony grinned, waving goodbye happily. "See you at Comic-Con. Don't stalk me!" Then he turned to Loki, who was still completely shell-shocked. "Oh, nice choices. Let's go see how they fit."

Ten minutes later, Tony was pacing idly outside the Hugo Boss dressing room while Loki ranted from inside the nearest dressing room.

"How can you be so nonchalant about those horrible little females? They were depraved!"

"I thought you were into the whole demi-god worship thing."

"I only ever demanded as much respect as was proper to a King," Come Loki's muffled reply as he tossed various articles of clothing over the dressing room door, fickle as a schoolgirl on prom night. "But those children were not respectful, they were obsessed. They insinuated that you and I were bedfellows."

Tony chuckled under his breath, snapping a picture of a garish purple suit left hanging on the wall and sending it to Bruce via text message. "Frostiron…"

"What?"

"Frostiron, that's what it's called. It's a ship."

Loki unlocked the door and stuck his head out, half glaring at Tony, half searching his face for some kind of clarity. He was buttoning up a crisp white shirt with nimble fingers.

"Sexual depravity is not within itself seaworthy, Stark."

Tony laughed. "No, ship as in relationship. It's slang for a fake romantic pairing? People have them." He realized that Loki had no idea what he was talking about and laughed again."Alright, here's the gig. The Avengers are national celebrities, so are most of the people we fight. Superheros and supervillians, engrained on the shared consciousness, an ideal for people to idolize or defame or write term papers about. You follow me so far?"

"I believe so," Loki said, popping back into the dressing room.

"That said, we have a fairly large fanbase, people who are just crazy about the Avengers and know everything about us and buy stuff with our faces on it. Some really intense ones, especially the young girls, have what they call ships. Meaning, romantic relationships they support and want to see happen. Some of them are really off the wall, oh let me think, there's Superhusbands, which is me and Cap..."

"Gods deliver us."

"Science boyfriends, which is of course Bruce and I, BlackEye, that's Nat and Clint, well done you on making that one real, and of course FrostIron, which is you and me."

"Together? Within the bounds of romantic entanglement?"

"That's the idea."

Loki cackled from inside the dressing room, snapping the lapels on his suit jacket. "What a strange custom! You know Anthony, many of these "pairings" seem to feature you."

"I'm a popular guy."

Loki stuck his head out of the dressing room again, only to grin at Tony in a toothy, needling way.

"So you're the whore of their little fantasy world?"

"Put some clothes on, Laufeyson, we haven't got all day."

"No, I think that title suits you."

Tony smirked back at him in a positively poisonous way. "Oh, I almost forgot one of the biggest ones! ThunderFrost. That's-"

"Do shut up Tony," Loki said quickly as he disappeared back into the dressing room. There were some things he never wanted to hear.  He allowed Tony a moment to gloat while the god adjusted his cufflinks, then asked,

"Why have them though? Why care?"

"Why not? You make yourself into something larger than life, a symbol, people are bound to react strongly. We are the American friggin dream and everyone shows enthusiasm differently. Fury feeds it of course, we have to make public appearances and do interviews and national monument openings; it's a real drag. Although I of all people am not going to complain about the attention."

Loki looked at the stranger in the mirror and paused, a heavy weight settling in his chest suddenly.

"And I'm part of that now, that ideal?"

"You bet. No pressure."

Loki pressed his knuckles to his lips, memories of past sins and wrongs endured flashing before his eyes, then murmured too low for Tony to hear,

"But it doesn't make me a hero. It never will."

"Wassat?"

“Nothing. I've finished."

"Let's see!"

Loki stepped out with a reluctant sigh from the dressing room, revealing his chosen suit. It was pitch black and sharply tailored, expect for the white expanse of his shirt and rich emerald silk of his tie and the lining of his jacket. Tiny golden snakes glinted on his cuffs, and Tony threw his hands up in a eureka gesture.

"Bravissimo! We're getting it."

That night, Loki sat in the main room of Avengers Tower, sipping a glass of red wine as he perused a large stack of law books he had goaded Tony into checking out for him from the public library. Apparently being a Norse god under permanent amnesty from SHIELD and an Avenger on top of it all did not necessarily make you eligible to apply for a library card, and Tony thought Loki was going to cry when they limited the number of books he could get to fifteen.

The god was quite enjoying filling his brain with a challenging new field and had to admit to himself that Tony had been right; he was incredibly suited to law. Perhaps after this Avengers business was over he would retire and open a firm of his own.

So engrossed was Loki in his reading he almost didn't hear Steve come in, almost being the operative world.

"Good evening, captain," The god murmured, not bothering to look up from his paralegal textbook.

Steve shifted by the door, watching Loki silently for a moment. He had yet to really reach out to the god, not through any personal distaste or prejudice, simply because the two were incredibly different and didn't have much to talk about. Loki had never forgotten that Steve had stuck his neck out for the god's sake more than once and Steve remained appreciative for what Loki had done for Natasha and the rest of his team, so they held up a quiet, mutual respect. Conversations in which the others weren't present, however, were near nonexistent, so it was surprising when Steve asked,

"Are you alright?"

Loki looked up from his reading. "I beg your pardon?"

Steve glanced at his feet, then made himself look Loki in the eye. "It's just…Well, the last few days you've been a little off, if you don't mind my saying. Quieter. Is it because you don't have your magic, are you sick? I can get Bruce to-"

"I am not ill," Loki said quietly.

"Then it's the Chitauri business, isn't it, that's what's bothering you? I don't mean to be intrusive, but it's okay to be disoriented. It was a difficult choice to make, stressful for you in more ways than one. You don't have to go at handling it alone."

Loki took Steve in for a moment, wondering at the supersoilder from a time gone by. He seemed to be inherently good, all high morals and honest intentions, a notion that Loki, a man who was accustomed to using the shadows to his advantage and making use of his nature as a liar, found unfathomable. He almost suspected ulterior motives, but this was Steve, and Loki reminded himself that he was probably incapable of deception.

"I have been…Examining my decisions in light of previous events, yes, but I find no fault in them, so though your concern is touching, it is not warranted."

"I know that. That's not what I meant. Are you  _alright_ , Loki?"

Loki set his wine down, whipping off the half-moon reading glasses he had borrowed from Natasha. He had never had the best eyesight, and the god had a suspicion it had something to do with hiding Jotun eyes behind Aesir ones, which were fundamentally different in the way they processed light and depth. He usually reconciled the discrepancy with a spark of magic, but despite the twinges of green energy he could feel returning to his system little by little, Loki had been forced to resort to more primitive measures to tide himself over.

"I don't mean to be frank, but why are you interested, Captain Rodgers?"

Steve shrugged. "I watch out for my team."

Loki gave a bemused smile, leaning back and gnawing lightly at the tip of his glasses. "You count me among your motley crew?"

"I always have. Since the day Clint found you in central park. It's only right."

Steve's voice was so nonchalant, without any form of sentimentality or play for affection, that Loki could hardly form a response. He rarely encountered honesty, so he had little choice than to reply in kind.

"I am…Disturbed, yes. On a personal level, one that does not affect the rest of you. Therefore, I have not spoken of it."

"But if it's bothering you, it's still important. Would you like to talk to Thor, or-?"

"No. I prefer to mull things over on my own, I always have."

Steve looked a little awkward, perhaps a touch crestfallen, but nodded all the same. Just once, sharp, military.

"Alright then."

A heavy silence passed, then Loki decided he wouldn't make Steve suffer by cutting him out entirely.

"I merely wonder if what I have done won't come back to haunt all of us. I feel the weight of sins on my heart and cannot wash the blood of that shade off my hands. This joining of your team, my initiation into your ranks…It has truly been a pleasure, easy even. Too easy. There's a penny I can't quite place up in the air and soon, very soon, it's going to drop and everything is going to go to Hell. That is what bothers me, Captain Rodgers."

There was sadness written into Steve's crystal blue eyes. "Good things happening in your life doesn't always mean that everything will suddenly go terribly wrong, Loki. It doesn't have to."

The god smiled bitterly. "Oh, but it does Captain. In my more than ample experience, it always does."

The solider sighed, nodding slowly, and Loki wondered in his detached, uncaring way, if he had injured the Captain's feelings. Suddenly, he noticed something that genuinely peaked his curiosity.

"You're in your costume. Why?"

Steve glanced down at his star-spangled suit and seemed to remember his purpose, straightening a little.

"Been in it all day. The rest of the team were out hunting a felon while you were shopping with Tony. All of us have been down in the basement holding cell for the past hour, haven't you noticed?"

"I've been otherwise occupied."

"Well, I'm calling you in now. We find ourselves in need of particular talents and Nat tells me you may be the right man for the job."

Loki stood, swallowing the rest of his wine and abandoning his study for the moment. The tone in Steve's voice carried a clear message: time to earn the title of Avenger.

"How may I be of service?"

Steve walked briskly to the nearby elevator that ran from subbasement to penthouse, pushing a button that opened the doors with a sprightly ding. He stepped inside, nodding to Loki to follow. Then he turned to the god and asked,

"How well trained are you in interrogation tactics?"


	16. Back in Black

"C'mon Reindeer Games, step it up," Tony called up the stairs to Loki's room, shoving his sunglasses into his disheveled hair and straightening his cuffs. "I've been late to my own hearing the last three times; apparently that's bad manners or something."

"Peace, Friend Stark," Thor rumbled, tugging Tony back a few feet by his collar so he would stop pacing and making the god dizzy. "Haranguing my brother only slows him more; he shall join us within plenty of time."

Tony growled like a kitten caught by the scruff of the neck, straining against Thor's vice grip. "I don't wanna hear it, Beefcake. The trial starts in twenty minutes and it's a fourteen minute drive across town. Your kid brother is cramping my style."

"You are impatient as a child on Christmas, Anthony," Loki called from upstairs, smiling to himself and his new-found cultural knowledge of this Midgardian "Christmas". It was the latest item on a long list of things Natasha had been gracious enough to explain to him, a list that also included internet dating, taxicabs, and American Idol.

"I am Iron Man!" Tony snarled, still trying to twist away from Thor. It was his favorite thing to interject with when he had nothing better to say.

Loki appeared at the top of the stair in all his usual understated thema, descending the stairs in his pristine green and black suit. "So we've noticed."

Thor nodded approvingly at his younger brother's garb, finally releasing his captured billionaire. "You certainly look the part, brother."

"Let's hope he can act it," Tony mumbled, smoothing the creases out of his lapels.

"I am an exquisite negotiator," Loki said humbly, long fingers snapping out to snatch Tony's glasses off his head and toss them aside, then fix the flyaway hair he had disturbed.

Tony, who could only handle so much preening in one sitting, squirmed like a schoolchild in his itchy Sunday best.

"Yeah, we've noticed. Helluva number you pulled on Stolbach the other night."

Loki smiled to himself with some self-satisfaction. When Steve had requested his presence at the interrogation a few nights ago, Loki had been expecting a foreign spy or international smuggler, something run of them mill to test his strengths and prove his worth as a team player. What he got was an unexpected delight; Henrich Stolbach, the German assassin who had put a poison dart in Natasha two months before. Loki had been more than happy to joining Natasha in psychologically breaking the man into pieces, and the team had watched with open-mouthed surprise as the two of them had reduced Stolbach to a sobbing, groveling mess in just under four minutes. By minute five, they had a written confession, extensive list of contacts and underground agents, and full on conversion to Norse god worship, which Steve was convinced Loki had thrown in just to grandstand with.

"You're welcome," Loki muttered, tugging on Tony's teased tresses one last time just to be irritating. "Shall we go?"

"I wish we would! We're going to be late as it is."

"Oh hush. I'm never late."

Tony didn't like Loki's tone. "What's that supposed to mean?" He demanded, noticing the way Thor took a measured step backwards.

"Hold your breath," Loki commanded, snatching Tony's fingers between his own.

Tony's response was the squawk in a very unmanly way and jerk his hand back, even though Loki kept tight hold on him as he muttered an incantation. Tony continued to protest even as the air around him turned hazy and his vision went green and then, quite promptly, black. He had the strange sensation of being pulled bodily through somewhere dark and cold, where he soon realized it was impossible to talk, because there was no air in the darkness. When walls and a tile floor finally materialized around him, he gasped and collapsed to his knees, lightheaded and disoriented.

Loki stood over him and heaved a longsuffering sigh, rolling his eyes.

"You didn't hold your breath, did you? There's no atmosphere between dimensions, Anthony."

"Inter-dimensional travel?" Tony rasped, waiting for his world to stop spinning.

"Obviously. Honestly, you call yourself a scientist…"

Tony was still on the floor, slapping at his arc reactor as though what had just happened was the fault of intricate technical error, not his inability to follow simple directions.

"How about we don't do that again? Ever. As long as I live. Agreed? Peachy."

Loki furrowed his brows when Tony didn't immediately get up, heaving the billionaire to his feet because they were currently standing in the middle of the New York State court building and the people milling about were starting to stare. Tony stumbled up, righting himself immediately as if nothing had happened, and attempted to pass an intelligent-sounding comment on the architecture of this particular building.

Loki tugged Tony by the sleeve to the large double doors leading into the main courtroom. The two bailiffs standing there stared for a moment openly, then resumed their stoic expression as though Tony and Loki were just another defendant and lawyer.

"At least I ensured that we arrived on time," Loki said.

"Whatever, Witchy Woman. Just get me through his trial in one piece, yeah? And remember, no one has seen you since the attack on New York, you have to be on your best behavior. SHEILD's planning to announce your Avenger status at the end of the week; this should be a nice precursor to warm the public up to you, not some fiasco Daddy Fury needs to clean up."

"Oh but the latter is so much more stimulating."

"I'm serious, Loki."

"You? Serious? Forswear the day."

"I'm not afraid to represent myself."

"Oh yes you are. I've read your legal record. Shall we revisit what happened the last time you 'represented' yourself?"

Tony swallowed a scathing remark at this, because he might have been just a touch of sloppy drunk the last time he fired his lawyer an hour before the trial and tried to slur through the defense himself. He didn't remember much about that day, only that he had somehow ended up dancing on the plaintiff's table while blasting Motorhead from the quickly hacked courtroom speakers, then woken up twelve hours later in a holding cell with Natasha and a bail bondsman standing over him. That little stunt had earned him a month of house arrest and fifty hours of community service.

"Just….Play nice," The billionaire muttered.

Loki nodded, then he grinned, and this unusual glint of teeth unsettled Tony on a primal level.

"What are you so damn happy about, Green Eyes?"

"This is going to be more fun than I've been allowed to have for some time," Loki muttered, and all the color drained from Tony's face. Before the billionaire could get a warning word in, the two baliffs had heaved open the double doors and were ushering them inside.

Ten minutes later, after the usual pleasantries and swearing in, Tony and Loki were seated at a large oak table that dwarfed the both of them, facing a state-appointed judge and jury of their peers. The courtroom was packed. Tony Stark on trial was like Superbowl Sunday to the people of New York; the day came around every so often and you took off work and got there early to grab a good seat. Reporters fought each other tooth and nail for the chance to get one of the infamously scathing and controversial Tony Stark soundbites, and since it had been leaked that Loki, yes _that_  Loki, was going to be defending Tony in court, half the city had made of day of watching the spectacle.

Currently, the disgruntled judge was trying to argue Loki's authority.

"My…Laufeeson, is it?" The judge asked skeptically, pronouncing the middle syllable incorrectly, a common mistake.

"Lau _fey_ son," Loki corrected amicably. "Odinsson legally, but that's really just splitting hairs at this point in time."

"And you intend to represent Mr. Stark in this court case?"

"Naturally."

The judge, a rather robust man with drooping jowls and proportionately tiny glasses, leaned forward a bit in his chair.

"And do you have the proper certification to perform all legal duties as Mr. Stark's lawyer?"

"I've passed your mortal "bar exam", if that's what you mean. Aced it, I believe is the term."

Loki left out the bit about remembering to get himself certified that very morning and speeding through an online version of the exam a few hours earlier. Technicalities.

"And are you a legal citizen of the United States?"

"The papers are in the processing stage. However, I do have a SHIELD visa, which I believe is worth it's legal weight in gold. Your records will cooaberate my statement, I'm sure. And before you ask," Loki continued smoothly, flipping open a file he had brought with him containing Tony's case and a few key documents. "I also have in my possession a full pardon of past actions by the United States government, a lifting of my being banned in Germany, and a clean bill of mental health signed by the spectacularly overqualified Doctor Bruce Banner."

With each qualification, Loki flipped them out of the file and onto the judge's desk, who didn't look amused but reviewed them all the same. While the judge cross-referenced Loki's stamps and seals, the god locked eyes with a beautiful women sitting in the jury, who had been gazing at him with measured intensity since he entered the room. Unlike the other members of the jury, she was neither frightened nor giddy nor agitated. Tony noticed Loki noticing her, and didn't miss the very subtle wink the god threw in her direction. Tony arched a sassy eyebrow. That was _his_ courtroom gimmick. He didn't have time to pass remark though, because after a moment of thought and a heavy sigh, the judge put in a sarcastic,

"Anything else you'd like to add, Mr. Laufeyson?"

Loki's lips spread into a smooth, terrifying smile. Tony had seen that smile before, and historically, bodily pain usually followed. Clint, who had been ordered by Fury to tag along to the court case just in case things got somehow messy, read all shades of disturbing subtext in Loki's smirk and sat up a little straighter in his seat. He was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, and even if he hadn't been in disguise, the clamor and crowded nature of the courtroom would keep Loki and Clint from recognizing him. Still, he wasn't afraid to make himself blatantly apparent if an unfortunate turn of circumstance forced him to pull rank, and the archer's hand wandered to the gun strapped to his hip.

In the front of the courtroom, Loki gave the tiniest of bows.

"Also, I am, for all intents and purposes, a member of the Avengers Initiative."

The courtroom dissolved promptly into shouted questions, curses of disbelief, and the flashbulbs of hundreds of cameras. Loki stood amid the chaos satisfied with his work, smiling at the woman, who nodded approvingly back to him.

"Son of a bitch," Clint swore, then spoke into the tiny mike clipped to his lapel that was routed to SHIELD headquarters. "Get Director Fury on the line."

 


	17. Love the Way You Lie

The clamor in the courtroom was deafening. The reporters were raising a frenzied racket and had to be pushed back behind the audience barriers by the beefy bailiffs who were currently wondering why they hadn't called in sick that day. Clint had risen from his seat and was slowly pushing his way through the crowd, speaking in low, authoritative tones into his lapel mike. Tony was pitching a god-awful fit and Loki was smiling that damned smile. It took a few moments, but eventually the persistent rapping of the judge's gravel settled down the court.

"ORDER!" The judge boomed.

Most people resumed their seats and lowered their voices. But, as per usual, most people did not include Tony Stark. He was ready to crawl across the table and choke Loki out with that stupid green tie, but was currently satisfying himself by spitting a torrent of curses at the god, which the reporters around him were taking down eagerly. Behind him, Clint was politely working his way to the front. The judge, by now, had singled out Tony for condemnation.

"Mr. Stark, contain yourself! This court is not your plaything!"

"Tell that to him," Tony snarled, pointing a poisonous finger at Loki, who arched an eyebrow skeptically.

"Such a temper, Anthony. I hardly think the other Avengers would approve of your conduct."

"You sneaky son of a bitch!"

Clint flashed his SHIELD ID to the nearest bailiff, who allowed him onto the main floor of the court without question. Clint sidled up to the man of iron and said lowly,

"Tony, bring it down a few notches."

"Like Hell I will!"

Clint bristled a little at this. "Last warning, Stark. I will detain you."

"You so much as put a hand on me, Clint, and I swear to Go-"

Without another word, one of Clint's hands clamped around Tony's neck, slamming his face into the table, and the other twisted his arms behind his back. This all happened in under a second, and Clint somehow found time in all this to calmly show the judge his SHEILD identification and take a sip of Tony's provided water.

"Permission to speak, your honor."

"Granted, Agent Barton."                               

"If it pleases the court, I would like to stay near my volatile comrade for the duration of the trial."

"Please do. And feel free to rough the Asgardian up too if he gets out of line."

"With pleasure , Sir."

Clint released Tony, who had been struggling wildly for the last minute, as though nothing had happened. The billionaire snapped up, eyes blazing less with real pain and more out of embarrassment. Technically, he should have been able to get out of a standard SHIELD pin, but he had never paid that much attention in training and hadn't expected Clint to really follow through on his threats.

"That's why you need to come to the self-defense seminars more often," Clint whispered sidelong, sitting down at the defense table.

"Shut up, Katniss."

"Gentleman," The judge cut in, massaging his aching brow. "May we please get on with the proceedings?"

"With pleasure," Loki answered, stepping up smoothly. He was in prime form, charm and ready wit showing in every glint of teeth and flash of eye. "May I be informed as to what exactly my client is being charged with? The court has been vague on specifics up to this point."

"Absolutely," The judge said, peering at the list of accusations through his spectacles. "At 9:47 PM on July the nineteenth, your client, Mr. Stark, crashed through the roof of the Eastgate Shopping Mall in Brooklyn in full battle armor. Eyewitnesses, two janitors and a security guard, saw your client begin to demolish the shopping mall with everything from missiles to flamethrowers to military grenades." At this point in time, Loki threw a glance at Tony that seemed to say  _military grenades? Really?_  Tony shrugged innocently, a child caught with his hand in a cookie jar that had obviously maliciously thrown itself at him in an attempt to mar his good name. Oblivious to their exchange, the judge continued.

"This continued for approximately ten minutes, then stopped abruptly when Mr. Stark left the shopping mall after once again gaining control of Iron Man suit. Luckily, no one was injured or killed, but there would have undoubtedly been numerous causalities if the shopping mall had been open at the time of the attack. Your client is being charged with defacing public property, wanton destruction of private merchandise, reckless behavior, illegal possession of military firearms, and vandalism. The total cost of damage is estimated to be hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Everyone in the crowd either booed or gasped. Loki hissed through his teeth. It was worse than he was expecting. Still, he remained confident in his abilities.

"Your honor, I believe the court is fully aware that Mr. Stark's possession and use of the Iron Man Suit and all firearms within have been deemed perfectly legal by the last jury who were called in to try my client."

The judge waved to the prosecutor, a young buck in a snappy three piece who had been looking very eager to get a word in edgewise since the trail began. "Yes, but there were some specific infringements of firearm law involed. Mr Grayson?"

Loki, without taking his eyes off the judge, snapped at this Mr. Grayson and pointed back to his chair, as if ordering a disobedient child not to leave their seat. The young lawyer, so thrown of balance by Loki's unprecedented display of dominance, sank sullenly back into his seat.

"Under the last ruling, any weapon outfitted to the Iron Man suit is legal so long as the weapons are derivative of Stark technologies,” Loki said. “Anthony, you don't have any Hammer tech synched to your suit, do you?"

"Justin Hammer's a war criminal remember? You know who's a war  _hero_? I am. Why am I on trial again?"

Loki tried to bring Tony back on point by a question tailor-fit to the billionaire's special brand of grandstanding charm.

"And does the Iron Man suit harbor any foreign technology not domesticated by the American government?"

Tony slammed his hands down enthusiastically on the table, spinning to face the crowd with a grin. He knew exactly the door Loki had just thrown open for him.

"Not one piece of the Iron Man suit, nor any sparkplug, screw, or circuit used in Stark technology comes from overseas. Every new product that Stark Industries puts out is made right here in the good old U-S-of-A, building our economy, adding jobs to the workforce, and protecting our interests. That's what Iron Man is about, goddamnit, proving that yes American is still on top, no we won't sit back and allow our country to be overtaken, and you can bet your ass we will retaliate in kind if you so much as raise a finger against us! God Bless America!"

With every word, his voice and gestures grew more overtly dramatic, and his monologue ended in a standing, cheering ovation from the crowd. He bathed in the din of their adulation for a moment, all the positive attention sending a heady rush through his veins.

"God I'm good!" He finished, then stopped blowing kisses to pretty girls in the crowd when Clint yanked him back into his seat.

The rest of the trail followed suit. Loki refused to let the opposition get a word in edgewise, and eventually Mr. Grayson just stopped trying. The god twisted everything the judge threw at them around so it worked in their favor, playing the jury for pity, patriotism, and pride. Despite their earlier altercation, Tony and Loki worked together dangerously well. When Loki insisted that the Iron Man suit had been seriously malfunctioning during the episode in the shopping mall, Tony backed it up with specs and graphs brought from home. When Loki claimed that the only reason the suit was malfunctioning was because of the low security standards the US government had forced Tony to impose on his personal mainframe that had allowed malicious hacking into the JARVIS system, Tony went on a stirring rant about personal liberty that had the audience singing the national anthem. Nobody really seemed to be paying that close of attention to the proceedings though. Girls threw their numbers at Tony, people took pictures of Clint on their video phones and updated their Twitter with what Loki was wearing. This was entertainment at its best.

Clint never moved from his seat beside Tony and only threatened to cuff the billionaire to his chair once. At a slow moment in the trial, he turned to Tony and, never taking his eyes of Loki, muttered,

"You're a lot like him, you know."

Tony was taken aback. "Who, Green Eyes?"

Clint nodded slowly, watching the proceedings with a soldier's wary eye. "You're both liars. You both nurture insane delusions of grandeur because you feel that you're on some level not good enough, and you both thrive in chaos."

Tony was used to hearing elaborate psychological evaluations of himself spat at him like ammunition; he was after all a textbook narcissist. But hearing it from Clint, and especially stated not as conjecture but mere fact, stung a little.

"Oh yeah? I don't remember attempting to subjugate an entire race in recent history."

"You demand worship in your own ways."

"Fine. But chaos? I'm an engineer, Legolas, I thrive in order and system checks and catalogued inventory."

"Professionally maybe," Clint said, taking a sip off Tony's water. "Not personally. Admit it. All this, the uncertainty of it, the way people scream your name, being the only solid thing in a tornado of flashbulbs and confusion…Soothes you. Hell, it gets you off. Loki's the same."

"Loki  _is_  chaos, Clint."

"No. He's what's left standing when the chaos subsides."

Tony furrowed his brow. Clint had the odd philosophical streak, but he wasn't used to it being directed at him and wasn't sure what the archer was trying to say. So he asked.

"English."

Clint set his water down, attending to the trial once again. "All I'm saying is that it's good that you're friends now, and yeah Tony, you're friends, so don't bitch and moan about it. Maybe together you'll need the chaos less."

"Fury sent you, didn't he? I've been too 'volatile' lately' he's worried I'm doing to whole self-destruct thing again?"

"Loki just called you to the witness stand," Clint noted, with a poker face that could have shamed Natasha. And that was that.

Eventually, after nearly three hours of audience participation and legal jargon, the State of New York ran out of charges and dismissed the jury or their deliberation. Tony knew he should be at ease, Loki had worked miracles with this case, but it was still a hard case to defend. Despite the fact that the suit's malfunction had been the result of external tampering, he had still damaged public property and put the lives of citizens in immediate danger. The fickle public didn't forget things like that easily.

After the jury was dismissed, Loki went and sat down by Tony and Clint, smiling amicably. Tony wasn't having it.

"What the Hell kind of stunt were you trying to pull, Loki? Fury's going to have your head."

"Yeah," Clint agreed, momentarily covering his lapel mike. "The Director's royally pissed."

"All will be explained in time," Loki said smoothly. "I assure you I had your best interests in mind."

"I'll believe it when I see it," Tony hissed. "Until I'm free and clear, your head's on the chopping block, Asgardian."

Loki shrugged, gesturing to the cabinet door, which had just swung open. "Then see, man of iron, and believe."

Tony was staggered to see the jury file in and return to their seats. Clint, equally baffled, glanced at his watch.

"They've only been gone three minutes!"

"A short deliberation, it would seem." Loki murmured.

"Ladies and gentleman of the jury," The judge began, indicating the select group of twelve. "What is your verdict?"

The strange woman Loki had winked at during his opening statement rose soundlessly, the verdict clasped between her delicate fingers. Tony was sure he has seen her somewhere before, and the smiles or coy glances she and Loki had exchanged through the hearing hadn't escaped his notice.

"Hey Lokes, who is that dame? Don't tell me you don't know her, something's going-"

"Hush," Loki chided. "Listen."

The woman cleared her throat and spoke with an authority and lightly regal accent that mirrored Loki's own. "We the jury find the defendant, Tony Stark, to be not guilty."

A clamorous cheer rose from the audience. Tony was always the fan favorite to win, and even though Tony knew that he wouldn't end up in jail no matter what the courts said, he breathed a sigh of relief as the impending threat of massive damages payments disappeared above his head. The judge seemed baffled by the ruling but tiredly dismissed the court, and Loki rose smoothly as the jury began to scatter. The strange woman strode with eyes alight over to him, caught his face in her hands, and kissed him. Clint choked on his water.

"Alright, alright," Tony snapped, standing with hands on hips. "What the Hell is going on, Loki?"

Loki paid him no heed for a moment more, then faced Tony with a longsuffering sigh. He kept his arm looped around the woman's waist, a strangely intimate display of affection for a god who didn't often liked to be touched.

"Anthony, Agent Barton…This is my wife Sigyn."

 


	18. Love the Way You Lie

Loki and Sign entire exchange had taken place in the blink of an eye and with a magician's sleight of hand; if anyone had been paying attention to their few seconds of stolen passion, they would have to second-guess what they thought they saw as the pair broke apart and regarded each other nonchalantly, as cool and uninterested as a pair of perfect strangers.

Clint tried to massage away the migraine blossoming at his temple. "Christ Loki, somebody probably saw that. She's part of the jury and you're the defense lawyer-"

"An unforgiveable indiscretion, I know. But things happen in the frenzy of an ecstatic win; people embrace, moments are stolen…These things are understood and quickly forgotten."

"The tabloids don't just "forget" things like that."

Loki shrugged, smiling wickedly. "They might when all the pictures taken today mysteriously develop as blanks. My magical aura plays Hell with human technology, it seems."

"You shorted them out," Sigyn smiled. "Showing off?"

"Oh? What about your influence in the deliberation? Really dear, three minutes?"

Sigyn let her eyes rove professionally, hands clasped behind her. "I still have some sway over mortal hearts, believe it or not." She adjusted her high and tight bun. "And yours, it would seem."

Tony had stopped smoking in college, but for the first time in a long time, his mouth was watering for a cigarette. Maybe an entire pack.

"Stop flirting! Son of a bitch, Loki…I trusted you with my trial and here you come outta left field with mind games and unexpected proclamations and a freaking Aesir wife…"

"I got you off, didn't I?” Loki snapped. “And in my defense, I did inform you I was calling in favors"

"I thought you were gonna talk to the D.A., not fly in a Norse goddess and plant her on the jury!"

"Actually," Sigyn put in mildly. "I'm an elf."

Tony threw his hands in the air, his nerves thoroughly spent. "Of course! How could I have missed that?"

"I've told you,” Loki sighed. “I had everything planned out. I was nearly positive that I, with a little theatrics, could ensure Anthony's innocence, but I would have been a fool not to go the extra mile to ensure our victory. I doctored the juror's files so Sigyn could slip in undetected and nudge the deliberation in the right direction if the general opinion proved unfavorable."

"How did you mess with the legal documents?" Clint demanded.

Loki held up a pale hand. A halo of magical green sparks crackled to life and danced through his radioactive fingers. "A shot of magic is just as effective as a well-woven line of computer code, and utterly untraceable."

"That is  _so_  illegal," Clint groaned. "Damn it, I'm an  _assassin_  and that's still illegal."

"I'm the god of chaos, dear. Illegal…Comes with the territory, is that the expression?"

"Modern vernacular has just broadened your bitchiness, hasn't it?"

"Sarcasm sounds better in American English, yes."

Sigyn, who had been watching this exchange with little to no interest, pulled on her coat and turned to her husband.

"If that is all you require of me, I'd like to return to my realm now."

For the briefest moment, Loki's face fell. Then it the minute show of weakness was gone, chalk wiped from a board with a damp cloth.

"I had assumed you would take the day, at least, to regain your strength for the return trip."

"This world holds nothing of interest to me."

"Sigyn, be reasonable-"

"You called and I came," The sorceress said coldly. "There’s no reason to fret more time away here on idle pleasantries."

"I'll have you remember that you never called for me, Sigyn," Loki hissed, a little bit of his old cruelty coming out again. "Not once in the space of two years did you ever try and contact me. I assumed you hated me as much as the rest of Asgard; I did not burden you with my presence because you did not wish it!"

"Maybe if you weren't so caught up on your pathetic attempts to claim your father's throne and subjugate this rock of a planet," Sigyn spit, eyes blazing. "You would have noticed how fiercely I missed you! I thought you had gone mad and abandoned me, but still I wept for you!"

"I  _was_  mad!" Loki exclaimed. "Filled with rage and poisoned by the Chitauri! I could hardly remember my own name! Nothing I did reflected in any way my opinion towards you or anyone else I cared about-"

"Hey!" Clint butt in forcefully, taking an authoritative step between the couple. "Calm down. We're out in the open surrounded by civilians and I think we've all drawn enough attention to ourselves today. Time to go home. I'm gonna go pull the car around." He nodded politely to Sigyn. "Ma'am, you're welcome to accompany us back to the Tower, but if not, I'll arrange for transportation to take you wherever you need to go. Thanks for your help. Tony's not good with expressing his feelings, but he owes his freedom to you and I'm sure he's grateful as well."

The archer nudged Tony.

"Huh? Oh, right. That thing you did there…That was good, yeah."

Clint yanked Tony up by the elbow in a brusque, security-guard type way, then noticed how exhausted Tony was from the proceedings and hooked an arm around his shoulders, walking him to the door with more gentleness. It had been a long day for both of them.

In their absence, Loki shot a poisonous glance to his wife.

"If you were going to be this difficult, why even bother appearing at all?"

"Because you needed me," Sigyn said simply. "And I love you."

Loki growled under his breath, screwing his fingers into a fist before wiggling them out again. He didn't do well with affection, giving or receiving. Finally he muttered,

"Still?"

A smile quirked at the woman's lips. "Do you know what they call me in Asgard now? Your parents and the rest of the Aesir? Goddess of fidelity. Damn you Loki, I will love you to a painful extreme until Ragnarok come. Though you spurn me and care naught for me, I will etch your name on the white cliffs of my homeland and teach the birds to sing your praises because in my eyes you will forever be worthy, forever my lord, forever my portion in this immortal life."

Loki stared at her for a moment, dry lips parted in disbelief, then grabbed her almost violently by the forearm and dragged her out of the courtroom through a side door. Sigyn stifled a cry, reminding herself that she had never had anything to fear from him before. But times had changed and she had heard horrible tell of the things her husband had become capable of. What if he struck her? What if he poisoned her magic? What if-

Loki shoved Sigyn into the deserted judge's chambers and without letting her protest, embraced her tightly. His long arms encircled her completely, crushing her into his body as though he could absorb her essence into him. Burying his face in her flaxen hair, Loki breathed,

"I am not demonstrative, you know this…But I never meant to give you cause to doubt my devotion. My intention was always for our betterment, but then everything got so complicated and my mind became so engulfed in darkness that I…" He sighed. He hated honesty, especially when it demanded a civil apology from him. "My actions were childish and foolhardy and I regret them greatly, not least of all for the pain they've caused you.

"I thought you a prouder man than this." Sigyn said

"Why do you think I dragged you into this closet? If I'm going to be reduced to a pathetic mess of sentimentality, I might as well do it behind closed doors."

"I'm happy I can still affect you so profoundly."

"It's your magiked elfin poetry," Loki muttered blackly, as though cursing some terrible scourge of the earth." Damned proclamations of faithfulness get me every time…"

Sigyn took a wary breath. "And you…Have you taken a paramour since our time together? I would understa-"

Loki shut her up with a firm kiss, burning a word painlessly into her skin at the point of contact with a green spark transferred by the flick of tongue. The runes for "irreplaceable" glowed in green on her bottom lip for an instant, then faded. Loki smirked.

"I have, much to my alcoholic colleague's chagrin, not so much as looked at another woman."

Sigyn arched a skeptical eyebrow. Loki sighed.

"You are in, if not the entirety of, the vast minority of those who can detect a falsehood from these lips. Do I lie?"

She looked at him for a moment, proud mouth set in a hard line. Then she proclaimed,

"No."

Loki grinned triumphantly, plucking up her hand and kissing the tips of her fingers. "Do not return to Alfheim in such a haste. Despite being a mortal structure, the Avengers Tower is truly magnificent. There are many diversions and pleasures here for one with your tastes, I'm sure I could help you in locating them."

"You cannot seduce me into staying with you," Sigyn scolded, although her cheeks were flushed.

"Then let me appeal to your practicality. You're drained from the journey across the realms; to attempt a return trip so soon would be hazardous to your health. You need rest. Clint has offered to house you; to rebuff his hospitality would be discourteous. Or have your people forgotten their obsession with social protocol?"

Sigyn, sighed, smoothing her jacket and strolling towards the door. "Fine. I will stay until the waning of the moon, not an hour longer."

Loki, who had long ago learned to translate the elves' nature-based calendar into practical terms, figured that gave him about four days. Plenty of time to kiss and make up, not long enough to start bickering. Perfect.

He smiled idly to himself, following her from an unassuming distance out the door and into the chatter of the crowd and flash of camera bulbs. This was turning out to be a splendid day.

Sigyn slid soundlessly into the backseat of Clint's SHEILD issue matte black car, almost spooking the archer. Almost. Clint was SHEILD after all.

"Where's Loki?"

"The press cornered him by the door," The elfin sorceress sighed. "I managed to slip away. Poor dear. He hates attention."

"Unlikely," Tony scoffed from the front seat. "With all due respect ma'am, your husband is a bigger attention whore than I am."

Clint shot Tony a look, but Sigyn didn't seem offended.

"Loki craves respect and power; it has always been his great flaw. He loves it when people are impressed by him but he doesn't like being…Looked at. It makes him feel trapped, like an animal in a cage. Even before his parentage was revealed, Loki suffered at the hands of his ignorant peers for his differences from the norm, and it made him rather…Camera shy, is that the term? He does not being a novelty and will not suffer mockery."

Tony filed that useful psychological tidbit away for later exploration. Te hard line in Clint's brow softened, if only a touch.

"You've known him a long time, haven't you?"

Sigyn nodded. "We studied magic together in our youth. Loki's parents realized that his son would not be deterred in his pursuit of sorcery early on, and tried to spare the family some embarrassment by sending him to study in Alfheim, my realm. Magic is the language of the elves, and there are no better teachers. Loki was my mother's apprentice; I was his confidant. After his schooling was through, I didn't see him again until our families arranged our marriage."

"Isn't it tradition for the eldest sibling to marry first?"

Sigyn scoffed. "Thor was too busy killing things and carousing with his warrior band to have any mind for marriage. It wasn't exceptionally suited to Loki or I's taste either, but my family was eager to cement a bond between Alfheim and Asgard. Loki's parents hoped that seeing us wed would serve to cool some of the fire—I suppose ice would be more accurate—in his blood."

"I'm assuming that genius plan didn't pan out?" Tony quipped.

Sigyn grinned, showing off faintly pointed elfin teeth, and that smile was pure mischief. "I should hope not. The elves respect Chaos; we are her bedfellows and handmaidens. Loki has always carried her mark on his skin. It's beautiful."

Sigyn took down her bun, hooking her loose hair around distinctly pointed ears, and Tony gaped. Clint, on the other hand, seemed to expect this.

"If you don't mind me asking, do you have any specific needs or restrictions we should be aware of? I know sometimes the fey can be particular about things we wouldn't normally consider…"

Sigyn smiled, looking at Clint for the first time since they had met. "A gentleman mortal, what a novelty. Most of the old charms hold no sway over my people anymore, but I appreciate the concern. I can't stomach pure salt, and cold iron burns like hot coals on faery skin. I don't eat meat, either, but that's more of a personal choice."

Tony was utterly lost. They were speaking mythology, which wasn't a language the engineer was acquainted with.

"How the Hell do you know that, Legolas?"

"Believe it or not, Tony, I read. I went through a phase in middle school where I was really into Western European myth. Elves are sort of a reoccurring theme."

Tony's baffled response was cut off by the  _thunk_  of Loki yanking open the car door and hopping in next to Sigyn. He looked a little shaken.

"Drive."

"You okay there, Lokes?" Tony ventured.

"I don't like reporters."

Tony nodded. "I can respect that. Welp, who's going to phone Captain Star Spangled and tell him we're bringing home a vegetarian elf for dinner?"

"Not it," Everyone in the car chorused.

Dinner was no the disaster everyone expected it to be. Thor, as was to be expected, was ecstatic to see his sister-in-law and enfolded her in a bone-crushing hug. Steve had a very firm conversation with Clint about inviting strangers into the house, but when the archer explained the situation and not-so-vaguely implied that elves were prone to raining down pestilence and bad luck on households that refused them courtesy, the super soilder admitted that yes, it was nice to have a proper lady in the house again. Nat hit him over that.

Sigyn explained herself over dinner and Loki very politely asked (with a steel in his eyes that quite plainly told them he was not indeed  _asking_ ) if she could stay for a few days. Everyone agreed.

The days that followed were wrapped in a strange, heady sort of idyll. The bustle and stress revolving around Tony's trial disappeared overnight, and against all odds, no life-threatening national crises came up over the weekend. The kinetic energy that ran through the seven Avengers, taunt as a bowstring and threatening to snap at any time, all but disappeared, and no one felt like doing much of anything. Clint napped excessively, Tony attempted to run diagnostics on his suit but soon gave into the far more tantalizing prospect of getting Steve hooked on Call of Duty, and Bruce and Natasha ate all the popcorn in the house and watched old film noirs. Loki spent most of his time with Sigyn, who was a perfect houseguest despite some peculiarities. She cried at the romantic bits in movies and laughed whenever someone died, once claimed Steve was trying to poison her when he offered her salt at breakfast, and soon proved that her diet consisted vastly of sugared water, raw vegetables, and flower petals. After a misunderstanding about her snacking on Bruce's begonias, Loki had five pounds of candied rose buds shipped in from a specialty bakery in Paris. Even Natasha had to admit it was romantic.

Once Bruce entered the living room, then immediately poked his head into the hallway and called softly for Tony. The billionaire appeared a moment later with a mechanical blueprint in his hands and a pen in his mouth.

"What's up?" He asked around the pen.

Bruce nodded to the living room, smiling behind knuckles pressed to his mouth. "Look at this."

Tony did, and the pen clattered to the floor. Loki was stretched out in a patch of d sunlight on the couch with Sigyn draped across his chest, the both of them fast asleep. Sigyn slept with her legs tangled in her husband's, check and palm pressed to his narrow chest, and one of his arms was curled around her shoulders, his hand disappearing into her hair.

"We should, uh, let them be," He muttered, trying to tear his eyes away from the weird scene.

"We should let them be," Bruce agreed, making no move to leave.

On the couch, Loki shifted slightly.

"I see you, Stark," He murmured, not bothering to open his eyes. '"Shall I add voyeur to your extensive list of personal shortcomings?"

"It's what you get for being all disgusting out in the open," Tony quipped back.

Sigyn curled herself tighter into Loki's body.

"Turn him into a newt, dear. I wish it."

"A newt?" Loki smiled. "That's rather harsh, don't you think? And so overdone…"

"A horseshoe crab then, I rather like those."

"Well…If you wish it."

Loki extended a hand towards Tony and allowed a few harmless sparks of magic to leap from his fingers in the billionaire's direction. Tony yelped and stepped instinctively behind the kitchen island. Loki snickered.

"You're terrible," Sigyn purred sleepily. "I love it."

She caught Loki's face in her hands and pressed an impish kiss to his lips. Tony made gagging noises.

"Are you serious? It's not going to be like this from here on out, is it? When's she going home again?"

Loki never got a chance to snap at Tony, because at the precise moment, the phone rang. The scientists patted down their respective pockets, looking baffled.

"Where is that coming from?" Bruce wondered aloud, and Loki sat up suddenly, looking confused.

"It…I think it's mine."

Rubbing some of the sleep from his eyes, Loki rummaged in his jeans pocket for the slim, high-tech cell phone he had been allotted upon becoming part of the Avenger's Initiative. It was a closed line for in-team communication and Loki knew it was practical, but he still didn't particularly like telephones. Something about hearing a disembodied voice unnerved him, and he had a tendency of shorting out cell phones without really meaning to, so he avoided his at all costs. He didn't recognize the number on the caller I.D.

"What do I do?"

"Answer it," Tony prompted.

"I gathered that. How?"

"Press the green button and talk, dumbass."

"Horseshoe crab," Loki threatened blackly, then answered the phone. "Hello?"

There was a pause, the crackle of dry static. Sigyn rested her pointed chin on his shoulder, gazing at the mobile phone inquisitively, and Tony and Bruce exchanged confused glances. Then a cultured, deadly-smooth voice came through on the other line.

"Hello yourself, dear."

Loki's mouth went dry. "Who is this?" He rasped.

The voice on the other line chuckled, rich and cold and dark.

"I'm Frankenstein's monster, back to collect on a debt."

Loki snapped the phone shut and threw it as far away from him as it would go.

"Whoa!" Tony exclaimed, suddenly unnerved. "What happened? Who was it?"

Loki felt his chest constrict as the panic that Bruce had long ago diagnosed threatened to resurface once again. Then he composed himself and whispered,

"It was the shade."

 


	19. Power

The happiness in the room was shattered so fast you could almost hear the tinkling of glass. All the color drained from Tony's face and Loki suddenly felt very weak, bracing himself on the arm of the couch.

"Loki?" Sigyn breathed, reaching out for him. "What troubles you?"

He could not answer her. Bruce stepped forward, squeezing her shoulder gently.

"Everything's going to be alright, Sigyn. Would you please go fetch Steve for me?"

"But my husband-"

"Needs a moment. Please."

Sigyn rose reluctantly and disappeared down the hall to rouse Steve from his afternoon nap. Bruce turned to Loki.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course," The god snapped testily. Tony tried to take his hand and sit him down, an unprecedented display of concern for the billionaire, but Loki wrenched his arm away.

"I am not a child, Stark."

"Suit yourself. What did he say?"

"I…I don't know; something about collecting on a debt. It made no sense, I…You said this was going to solve our problems, I knew it would go awry! You have no idea what you've started, Stark, your mortal hubris is going to reign destruction down upon you and your house-"

Tony had heard enough. Loki was working himself up into a rage to hide his fear and Tony wasn't in the mood to listen to a super-villain monologue. He stepped forward and gripped Loki's arms tightly, ignoring the god's uncomfortable squirming.

“Let me go!” Loki snarled.

"Christ Loki, shut up and let us help you."

"I h-hate you," Loki spat, still trying not to hyperventilate from the phone call. His hands were shaking.

Breathe, Lokes. If you pass out I'm gonna take pictures, so don't."

Loki soothed but eventually regained his composure.  Once the burst of emotion had past, Tony released him and Loki smoothed his shirtfront.

"I want very much for this to be over and done with."

"You and me both," Tony sighed.

It was then the pair of them noticed a faint electronic murmur. Bruce figured it out first.

"The phone. You never hung up."

"And?"

"The shade's still on the other end."

Loki's eyes fell to the cell phone lying harmless on the carpet, assessing it like a venomous snake.

"You don't have to," Tony said quietly.

Loki took a deep breath, then strode to the phone, picked it up, and snapped it to his ear.

"I swear on Valhalla that is this is not genuine I will hunt you down, skin you like a basilisk and leave your carcass for the dogs to fight over."

For a moment, Loki heard nothing but static. Then a voice came through.

"So violent, dear. A pity the man of iron and his friends have you tamed. You have a deliciously dark imagination."

Loki was so full of hate and confusion that his magic burned and buzzed in his skull, gathering at his temples to produce a throbbing headache.

"Kindly cease and desist your efforts to incite me with petty wordplay. I would not have contacted myself without reason and can safely assume that you haven't either."

"Oh so you believe that I am who I say I am? No agog and aghast denials? No stuttering 'but hows' and 'impossibles'? You're no fun at all."

"I tire of your games! Of course I'm curious as to how you managed to escape, but I did it once so it isn't illogical to assume-"

"That you did it again! You're sharper than I had hoped. Would you like to know how many Chitauri I killed in my daring escape?"

"It hardly matters!"

Sigyn reappeared, tugging Steve behind her by the sleeve, and while Tony quietly explained the situation to his commanding officer, Bruce smoothed the shaken elf's hair as he would a child, insisting in his gentle tones that all would be well.

Over in his corner, Loki had his forehead pressed against the wall and was doing his best to maintain his composure. He knew himself, he knew his buttons. Demeaning the shade would inevitably result to violence, while speaking to it with respect and sincerity might make information more forthcoming.

"I…Am certainly grateful you managed to escape, however. The Chitauri-"

" _Are what_?" The shade snarled, suddenly vehement. "A fate you would wish on no-one, brutal beyond comparison? And yet you made me live through it twice, malignant bastard that you are!"

Loki felt like he had been slapped. He straightened suddenly.

"I…We had no other choice! It was a shot in the dark, we had no idea how sentient you would become. I'm so sorry, please. You of all people must know I am sincere."

The shade scoffed low in his throat, a distinctly Loki quirk. "Now I know why they call you the Liesmith. But that’s not even what I'm truly enraged about. Do you know what really has me livid? The way you've allowed yourself to be declawed by these writhing insects you call humans. I have your memories, you'll recall, I know what a thrill it is to be worshipped as a god and feel chaos coursing through your veins. When's the last time you reigned down destruction, hmm? Have you tasted power at all since you went cowering to the Avengers with your tail between your legs?"

"All is not as you remember it, worthy shade, your recollection is stunted. Much has happened since they took me in-"

"A," The shade deadpanned eloquently. "I am not your "shade". I have a name, one you are no longer worthy of bearing, so you will refer to me as Loki if you wish to keep your tongue. B: I see right through your court courtesies, you serpentine brat, and they hold no sway over me. And C: I don't really give a damn what happened or who hugged it better or how much therapy you went to. I didn't come all the way back to Earth to listen to your excuses; I came to dethrone to false king and claim my title as god of lies. I believe you will find me quite the single-minded man, as you were before your "re-education"

"This is a coup, then? This is the thanks I get for giving you life?"

"This is revenge, darling. And it begins now. Kindly look out your window."

Loki felt the blood in his veins congeal, then, swallowing, he strode over to the bulletproof glass that made up a wall of the common room. Across the bay and in clear view of Loki and the rest of the world, the Brooklyn Bridge was burning.

Within seconds, Sigyn and the other Avengers were crowded around Loki, looking on in horror as an American landmark sizzled and bowed in the afternoon sun. The entire structure was alight, with a thick, angry column of black smoke spiraling heavenwards above.

The cell phone slipped anticlimactically from Loki's hand, hitting the carpet with a dull thud. "It's the shade," He croaked. "He did this."

"Call Nat and Clint," Steve said brusquely, snapping everyone out of their horrified trance. "Get your armor, Tony. Loki, suit up, find your brother, and move out. We'll meet up on the Brooklyn side of the bridge."

Tony was already on the phone with Natasha and halfway to his lab, gesticulating wildly for Loki to follow. He did so reluctantly, with a dazed expression on his face. Once Tony was off the phone and shouting at JARVIS to get his suit ready, Loki voiced his concerns.

"I'm not positive I understood the captain correctly…"

"Sure you did. Or would you like it in Asgardian? Verily I say unto thee, rouse thine brother from his slacker slumber, don the armor gifted to thee by the metal angel who bears the name Stark, and get thy celestial ass to the bridge."

"So this is an  _assemble_?" Loki pressed. "I'm to fight alongside you like a bother-in-arms?"

Tony shot him a glare. "Please don't tell me you're having one of your low self-esteem moments, because if you haven't noticed, New York is on fire. Again."

"And I set the fire twice over, once when I made that wretched creature and again when he exacted my darker tendencies on your world! This my doing, Stark!"

"So are you going to let that abomination steal your limelight, or are you gonna show him how a real full-tilt diva runs this bitch?"

It was unclear as to whether Loki grasped the entirety of Tony's slang but regardless, something about the set of his jaw and the glint in his eye clicked into place.

"JARVIS," Loki (who may or may not have wired the A.I. to respond to his commands during the Tower's magic overhauld) said with a snap of his fingers. "I require my battle armor."

"Certainly, my liege," JARVIS said.

Back in the living room, Steve turned to Bruce, who was wringing his hands and gaping at the damage with an anxious air.

"I my assumptions about gamma radiation are correct, then Loki's shade should have some sort of signature, yes?"

Bruce nodded. "The mixture of gamma signals, Loki's magic, and extraterrestrial radiation would be unmistakable."

"Could you trace it?"

"I could try."

"Good. You stay here, do your best to get a lock on the shade, and make sure Sigyn gets home safely. Miss," Steve said, indicating Sigyn and bringing her knuckles to his lips in a gentlemanly kiss. "Sorry to cut your visit short like this, but your husband has to work now."

Sigyn nodded, regal and put together as ever. "Completely understandable, captain."

"I'm glad. I leave you in Doctor Banner's capable hands. Bruce, I want regular status updates."

"Can do, captain."

Steve nodded in a military manner than strode off to suit up. Out the window, Bruce could see Clint and Natasha speed out of the Tower garage in matching matte black SHEILD motorcycles and weave through the street traffic towards the bridge.

Sigyn folded her arms underneath an oversized sweater of Loki's and watched the bridge burn, delicate eyebrows knitted together with a particular intensity. Bruce stared at her awkwardly for a few minutes, trying to think of what to say, then offered gingerly,

"Can I help you pack you things?"

Sigyn looked at him with the faintest smile on her lips. "Elves travel light, son of man. I'll manage just fine." She took a few steps toward him, looking up at him with pale, otherworldly eyes. "I know my husband has done something terrible, but you are his friend. You must keep his safe. This world is as alien to him as it is to me, and there are few of its people he respects as much as you. Do not let him die on a foolhardy mission to clear his name."

"I'll do my very best, Ma'am," Bruce murmured, trying very hard to look sure of himself.

Sigyn rose up on her tiptoes and pressed a rosepetal-soft kiss to his cheek. "You're a good man." She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Don't tell the others, but you're my favorite."

Sigyn let out a peal of chittering laughter, then promptly fizzled out of the visible spectrum. Bruce gaped at the empty air where she had once stood, then remembered his mission and sprinted into the lab to rev up his machines and hunt down the son of a bitch who had ruined their Sunday.

 


End file.
